Internet speed question (non-church related)

[LeAnn B]

This isn't church related but figured you guys would know the answer. I have wireless broadband for my home internet and I was thinking about upgrading my account to a faster package. I have a wireless Netgear N150 router that is connected to 3 laptops and Wii for Netflix. Will I see any difference in speed with that router or will I need to upgrade my router also?

[tdangelo]

Leann,

It is my experience that many internet service providers are actually delivering much slower speeds to the home than that which they advertise. Before you do anything, I would suggest finding out from the cable company (1) that which they advertise as being their connection speed, and (2) is that different from what your subscription contract states.

Then run a test like http://speedtest.net/ to see what you are actually getting. I would suggest running the test at a few different times during the day as the speed like likely slow down in residential areas in the summertime (versus when school is in session) during the day, and evenings and weekends all year around as there are more users are online at those times.

If you are getting far less than what your contract states and have the proof from http://speedtest.net/ it is my experience that the ISP will make efforts to solve it or upgrade you at no cost.

[LeAnn B]

Actually the speed is fine, probably slower than most but we are in a rural area so I've had slower. We can stream Netflix with minimal buffering and watch YouTube etc. We just have the option to upgrade to a 2-year contract, upgrade our package and still pay the same price. So I can either upgrade and pay the same, or stay at the same package and pay less with a 2-year contract. Just wondering if I will see any speed difference using our current wireless router.

[dmot]

I don't think it will make any difference. That router is supposed to handle up to 150 Mbps so let's just say you only get half that. Most rural DSL I have seen are somewhere between 1 Mbps - 7Mbs. In the city it will be between 10Mbps - 25Mbs. So this router is well above that so it will not be the bottle neck. Where that router's speed may be noticeable is when you are transferring files from computer to computer on the same network or if you are accessing a network harddrive, etc.

[greg4god]

Agreed with what was stated (other that DSL max speed, at least here in Ohio LOL).

For most peoples use, just about any router will be just fine, only bottle next will be between your own machines.

If you do have DSL, and it is with AT&T, as you get faster speed, watch your usage. AT&T caps at 150gig/s month and charges for overage. When we finally hit a bill for $60 overage, we switched back to cable. One thing I loved about my Netgear was that I could set it to warn when we hit the limit.

-Greg

[cmchamp]

LeAnn
What's your current broadband from speedtest.net?
Guys - did you miss she's on wireless broadband?
I was there, was getting 250-350mbps.
We switched to cable and now get ten times those numbers.
Reasons we switched?
1: The ISP changed to a 6 lobe antenna which placed us in a node and they could not get us solid dependable service.
2: The cable company was finally forced to move their line when the power company moved their poles to my side of the road.

[dmot]

Cory,

I didn't catch that and I am out of my league here so she will have to rely on others. I may be confusing bits and bytes too. (I thought a byte was 8 bits.) And I thought I had seen it Mbps or MBps for bytes and mbps for bits. Either way those are some incredible numbers you have there. I can get wireless broadband and the absolute fastest they offer is 3 MBps and it is expensive. Instead I use DSL of about the same speed for half the cost. I used to get 7 MBps until Verizon sold the company to a very bad company. How big of an antenna do I need to get your old service?

[wogster]

Originally Posted by LeAnn B

This isn't church related but figured you guys would know the answer. I have wireless broadband for my home internet and I was thinking about upgrading my account to a faster package. I have a wireless Netgear N150 router that is connected to 3 laptops and Wii for Netflix. Will I see any difference in speed with that router or will I need to upgrade my router also?

How much faster? Less then 25% you probably will not notice, 25%-75% you will perceive a difference, but only under load, for example 2 people downloading a video at the same time. more then 75% you will notice it, pretty much all the time.

[cw4u]

Well if you do DLNA stuff, then upgrading to a new(er) router might make sense. But other than that, I see no need to do it.

[EricE]

I replaced my Apple AirPort Extreme with a pfsense router/firewall and my speed jumped 20% when using sites like speedtest.net. I plugged in an older netgear I had before the AirPort Extreme and it was almost double the speed, so this is a perfectly valid question for her to ask! Not all consumer routers are made equally, and some of them can be quite the drag on your Internet speed!

A great site to find reviews for router speed is smallnetbuilder.com - although their somewhat geeky charts can be a little hard to decipher at first, you should be able to tell if your current router is at least in the middle of the pack performance wise, and it should help you find something faster if you do need it.

The other cool thing about advanced routers like the pfSense firewalls is you can do quality of service - for example, my gaming would suffer when others in the house started large downloads or Netflix - I was able to run the wizards that come with pfSense and prioritize my gaming traffic first, then Netflix and then everything else - and it works great. Some of the newer home routers have similar functionality. Especially if you are in a rural area with limited bandwidth, being able to enact minimal quality of service (QOS) with your router is a VERY good thing!