Why You Should Upgrade Your Router

(Even If You Have Older Gadgets)

Many people have the attitude that it doesn’t matter if their router is older because their phone, laptop, or other wireless gear isn’t cutting edge anyways. Even if you don’t have brand new tech toys you still benefit from upgrading a dated router.

Routers are the oft-ignored work horses of the home network. Most people hardly pay any attention to them unless there is a big malfunction, and people may not consider upgrading them any more than they consider upgrading their washing machine.

Unfortunately, this leads to a situation where the important-but-ignored router ends up being a source of degraded internet connection quality and a diminished user experience for everyone on your network. Upgrading to a current generation router is a cheap and effective way to improve your home network in every way:

• better Wi-Fi range
• stronger signal
• better handling of modern network demands

Are you experiencing frequent symptoms of an aging router? If you can’t get a Wi-Fi signal everywhere in your home (and have considered getting a Wi-Fi extender or a second router), that’s a good indicator you’re a good candidate for an upgrade. If you frequently have network-related congestion issues, like slow web page loading or stuttering video playback, that can’t be chalked up to a slow broadband connection then it’s a good sign that your router isn’t up to the task of serving everyone in your household.

Even if you aren’t noticing problems, you should also consider the age of your router, both in terms of the actual age of your physical device and the age of the particular model. You might have bought the router two years ago, but if the model itself is from 5 or more years ago, there’s a good chance that you’re playing with outdated router tech. If you’re still using a single band Wireless-G router from 2010 or before, for example, you’re essentially using a bicycle when you could be using a spaceship.

And, if you aren’t rapidly (or at all) adopting devices that can support the newest Wi-Fi standards like 802.11ac, you can still benefit by an upgrade as newer routers are optimized in ways that benefit older equipment too. Any router that supports newer standards will be, by default, at least a dual-band router. Older standards like 802.11b and 802.11g use the 2.4GHz band. Newer standards like 802.11ac use the 5GHz band (and some premium routers include two 5GHz bands).

At the bare minimum you’ll benefit from having one band for your older gear and one band for your newer gear that can support 5GHz communication (even if you don’t have any 5GHz stuff yet you’ll still have a nice wide open space for it when you upgrade).

If your router is long in the tooth, there’s no better time than the present to upgrade and take advantage of the new developments in router tech.

Credit: howtogeek.com