Why we increasingly need higher Wi-Fi speed
One of the reasons why we are seeing that our home WiFi router is becoming obsolete is because we have more and more devices connected to the Internet. We no longer only have a desktop or laptop computer, tablet or smartphone connected to the network of networks at home. We also have a Smart TV or a device with which we will see content at increasingly higher resolution. This implies that the bandwidth for the rest of the devices can be substantially reduced.
Then to this we have to add that smart plugs, IoT and home automation devices have recently been added. It is also increasingly common to have video surveillance cameras for security reasons, or to be attentive to what the little ones in the house do. This can make our home WiFi router fall short when it comes to wireless capabilities.
5 fundamental aspects when buying a WiFi router
In the event that we need to renew a home WiFi router so that it provides us with very good coverage and speed, we should look at these sections:
- The WiFi standard you use.
- The frequency bands it has.
- The number of WiFi antennas.
- That has technologies such as MU-MIMO and OFDMA from WiFi 6.
- The firmware that is as complete as possible.
Here are some tips for buying a router with the best Wi-Fi. Next, we will explain more exactly the characteristics that it should have.
Regarding the standard What should our router support? minimum should be the 802.11ac. This corresponds to what is currently called a Wi-Fi 5 router. However, if possible we could opt for a Wi-Fi that complies with the standard 802.11ax since they are becoming more affordable in terms of price. The latter could provide up to 4804Mbps of theoretical speed in the 5GHz band using 4 antennas and 1024QAM modulation with 160MHz of channel width.
Regarding the frequency bandsAt least it must support the 2.4 GHz band and the 5 GHz band. In the future we will see more and more routers that support the 6 GHz band, but at the moment they are very expensive and few devices could take advantage of it. You also have to look at the number of antennasIn this way, a router with four external antennas will be able to provide twice the WiFi speed than a router with two antennas. In addition, a greater number of antennas will improve coverage at medium and far distances.
Regarding technologies with which our new home WiFi router should have would be MU-MIMO and OFDMA. As for the first, we will have it if we have a Wi-Fi 5 or later router, and the second we will obtain with a Wi-Fi 6, so it would be highly recommended to have a router that has these standards to guarantee coverage. and real speed.
Finally, another very interesting aspect is the advanced firmware options that the manufacturer can provide us. Depending on the firmware of the router that we buy, we can have advanced functions in the WiFi such as support for WiFi Mesh, we could also have a wireless programmer, a VPN server with OpenVPN or WireGuard, a USB port where we will have the ability to share files and folders via Samba or FTP, have the DLNA media server, and we can even have integrated telephony, a highly configurable QoS to perfectly adapt to our needs and more.
