The passage of time ends up affecting all electronic equipment. Routers are not an exception, it also ends up affecting them, and they become obsolete, so we have to renew them. In the section of the Ethernet network cable we will surely not have any problem since currently all the routers that have been distributed with fiber optics are Gigabit Ethernet. Knowing that most fiber optic connections generally do not exceed the speed of 1 Gbps, then we are not going to have any problems. On the other hand, with WiFi it is something else, here we can have more complications because we have more and more devices connected to the Internet. For that reason, we need more wireless bandwidth to achieve higher speeds, since, for example, we like to stream content in 4K. In this article we are going to talk about whether we need to already have a Wi-Fi 6 router.
What should I consider before buying a router
The first thing we should do is reflect on whether we are happy with our current router. If it is a good quality WiFi 5 router and has recently updated firmware, we may want to keep it. On the other hand, if we are dissatisfied and also the firmware has not been updated for several years, for security reasons we should switch to a Wi-Fi 6 router.
We must not forget that to take advantage of WiFi 6we have to have some devices that are compatible with this new standard. In this aspect, it should be noted that the high-end mobile phones of 2020 already supported this technology. The situation in 2021 has also improved a lot and we already find many mid-high range smartphones that also support WiFi 6. To this we must add that it is increasingly common for laptops and other devices to also support this new wireless standard as standard. .
So before you do anything it is convenient to review the specifications of the devices that we have at home. Otherwise, if we don’t have any, we would have to buy them if we want to fully enjoy this technology, for example, buying a PCI Express card for a desktop computer.
If we have already seen that for some of the reasons that we have mentioned before, it is convenient for us to switch to a Wi-Fi 6 router, we will look for one that supports the 802.11ax standard. Although we also have the Wi-Fi 6E standard that adds the 6 GHz band and that will be released in the coming weeks by the main manufacturers. Currently due to its high price, it is not worth having it in most situations.
Things to consider when buying a router
Once we are clear that we want to make the change to a WiFi 6 router, we have to be clear about what features it should have. Today we can already find a quality WiFi 6 router for about €100, although our recommendation is that you increase the budget to approximately €150. Either by having one that we can take advantage of right now, or in the near future, we should get one.
As for the features that we should look at when buying this Wi-Fi 6 router, they would be:
- That it incorporates the WiFi 6 standard, with the functions of MU-MIMO, OFDMA, and above all, that it has two or more antennas and a channel width of 160MHz. Thanks to these specifications, we will be making sure that it is an AX3000 class router or higher, very important to achieve the best possible WiFi speed. We must remember that cThe more antennas you have, the better. as it will improve speed and coverage.
- Gigabit Ethernet ports, although it would be recommended that we have a 2.5G Multigigabit port to be able to connect a NAS server or our PC.
- have advanced settings in the firmware. Some manufacturers include Wi-Fi scheduler, the possibility of having a VPN server or other types, limiting bandwidth and QoS to give priority to certain data packets. We should always look at the firmware and all its features, not just the hardware of the different devices.
- Choose a renowned manufacturer such as ASUS, AVM FRITZ!Box, NETGEAR, D-Link or QNAP among others.
- have USB 3.0 ports of high performance, and its firmware has different services to take full advantage of it.
In summary, all these things are what we should look for in a Wi-Fi 6 router, so that it lasts as long as possible and does not give us problems.
