The last couple of days I spend stressing about my internet speed. We have the fastest package from our provider, Ziggo. Currently it offers 50Mbit download and 5Mbit upload, but they are upgrading to 120Mbit download and 10Mbit upload. As a matter of fact I already got a letter that my neighborhood has been provided with the upgrade but with my laptop hooked up directly to the modem I only get around 90 to 100Mbit I guess I should be happy with that.
I never really looked at my speed as long as everything downloaded fast in my opinion. When they announced the upgrade, I got a new modem, Ubee, to install. Since the new modem my internet got noticeable slow, when downloading torrents it was almost impossible to open websites. Then they finally released a new firmware for the modem that fixed the problem. But according to their own speed test I was only getting 30Mbps. I never thought it would be the router, a Linksys WRT160N, as it is supposed to be able to handle a lot of Mbps.
So I went back to hardware geek mode, reading and posting on forums about N protocol, 5Ghz band, all possible settings on the router to increase speed. And having thoughts a few time about 11 years ago when I was already happy being able to download one MP3 file and here I was bitching that 30Mbps is nothing.
In any case turns out my current router is not suitable for speeds over 100Mbit, it doesn’t support 5Ghz band and using N protocol is useless if you have iPhone’s, Blackberries, wireless printers and laptops without N protocol. The router will just use the most backward protocol. But even with all settings on max the router kept stuck at 30Mbits.
I had a friend drill a whole in the wall for a cable and now I clock speeds of 90Mbits down, which is the limit of the router.
Meanwhile I’m researching which router to buy that will support a gigabit network higher then 120Mbps, most probably the D-Link DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit Router. I don’t want to spend a lot on a router as I only use it to split internet, I don’t need all the extra you get with routers like the Draytek Vigor 2130n.
Oh, those first world problems.
You need a dual-band router.
Yes you are right. I realized that the D-Link DIR-655 doesn’t has dual-band. I am now seriously thinking about the Netgear WNDR3700N which has dual band an 400Mbps transfer rate between WAN to LAN.
Never even touch D-Link. Look for a Linksys but dual-band one, I’ve heard good things about them. What it will efectively get you is a router that will create two networks (one will be N-only and the other A/B/G). Dunno if that’s whtiin your budget though.
I’m done with Linksys for now, there is only one model in my budget with dual-band and the reviews aren’t that great.
Turns out the D-Link I want doesn’t has dual-band, so next on my list is the Netgear WNDR3700N. The later one is faster then D-Link and Linksys WRT610N.
I went to MediamMarkt yesterday to get the Netgear but they are around 30 euro more expensive then a webshop including the shipping. So I’m ordering it online.