It does not matter if you have a router that they gave you when you contracted the Internet or if you have bought a new one. Whatever model you have, it is important that it meets certain characteristics to work optimally, with good speed and quality. Otherwise, you may notice that the Internet is not working well.
keys in a router
What we are going to look for, mainly, is that the connection works well and fast, as well as maintaining security. These two factors are key in a router and they will help us avoid problems in our day to day when we are going to connect devices, such as a computer or a mobile device.
double band
The first thing is that it is double band. This means that it will work both in the 2.4GHz as well as in the 5GHz. Each of these frequencies has its positive and negative points, so using both depending on the situation will allow us to achieve better stability and speed.
The 2.4 GHz is ideal when we connect far from the router. It is the one with the greatest coverage and is less sensitive to obstacles and distance. However, it is less fast and you can also find more interference. On the other hand, when using the 5 GHz band we are going to achieve the maximum speed, but you should know that it is more sensitive to distance.
QoS
They are the acronyms for Quality of service. It is a feature that comes in many models of routers. The objective is to be able to prioritize traffic to guarantee that it will work well. For example, you may be going to make a video call and you don’t want cuts. Thanks to the QoS feature, it will prioritize traffic over possible downloads or anything else.
You will be able to configure this in the router, to decide which services you want to have better network quality. The idea is that they can work perfectly, without suffering annoying cuts or failures that make something start to go wrong.
Create guest network
Although it may seem that it is not a really important feature, the truth is that it can be very useful for your security. you can create one non-main network, with a different name and password that won’t compromise your Wi-Fi network. If you are going to receive guests at home, you simply have to enable that network that you have created.
The good thing is that it will not always be on. That will decrease the risk of having security problems. You will not have to give the main password and you will even be able to assign, in some routers, a maximum bandwidth to that network so that the rest of the connections continue to work well.
gigabit ports
For connect wired equipment, having Gigabit Ethernet ports is essential today in a router. It is what allows you to reach up to 1 Gbps. If you have Fast Ethernet ports, the maximum speed will be limited to 100 Mbps. You will have problems to take full advantage of the speed of your rate.
The number of ports also matters. Ideally, you should have several. If possible, have at least 4 ports. That will allow you to connect more than one device via cable and not limit yourself to just one. You will be able to connect computers, televisions or even mobile devices if they have an adapter.
Wi-Fi 6
Regarding wireless networks, Wi-Fi 6 is the latest protocol. It is the one that offers the highest speed to connect wirelessly to your router and have a good Internet connection to download, watch streaming content, use the cloud… The previous protocol is Wi-Fi 5, but current routers already incorporate this feature .
Of course, it is important that you use devices compatible with Wi-Fi 6. Not all mobile phones and computers are, but the most recent ones are. However, you can always buy a new network adapter for your computer, since they are cheap and you will notice that the network is better.
WPA3
If we focus more on security and think in the longer term, the WPA3 encryption It is undoubtedly something that a good router must have today. It is what allows you to protect the Wi-Fi key and avoid problems with possible intruders. If you use old ciphers, such as WEP or WPA, that can cause them to break the password and break into the network.
The problem is that for now there are not many devices that support WPA3. However, there are more and more and it is good to have a router that has this feature thinking about the future and enhancing security.
In short, these are the main features that you should see in a router today. It is essential to have a good device to surf the Internet and not have problems. With all this that we have shown, you will be able to reach a good speed and, in addition, maintain safety at all times.
