id=”article-body” class=”row” section=”article-body”> Tyler Lizenby/CNET If you’re looking for more horsepower from your home network, a new Wi-Fi router might be in order. Problem is, shopping for an upgrade can get confusing in a hurry. What does all of the jargon mean? How fast is fast enough? Is it worth it to spend extra for a multipoint mesh router, or for one that supports the newest version of Wi-Fi, called Wi-Fi 6?

Don’t feel overwhelmed. There are certainly lots of specs and technical nuances that go with wireless networking, but if you’re just looking for a reliable router that you don’t need to think about too much, you’ll do just fine if you understand a few key basics. Here’s what to know before you zero in on a purchase.

Speed ratings are basically bullsh*t

I’ve written about this before, 우리카지노계열 but it bears repeating: The speed ratings you’ll see on the packaging as you stroll down the router aisle are essentially meaningless.

Enlarge Image”Combined speeds” is a meaningless, misleading term. For instance, this router makes it seem like it can hit speeds of 2.2Gbps (2,200Mbps), but in reality, its fastest band has a top speed of 867Mbps — and that’s only in a controlled lab environment.

Ry Crist/CNET I’m talking about figures like “AC1200” and “AX6000.” The letters there tell you what version of Wi-Fi the router supports — “AC” for Wi-Fi 5, or 802.11ac and “AX” for Wi-Fi 6, also known as 802.11ax. The numbers give you a rough sense of the combined speeds of each of the router’s bands — typically 2.4 and 5GHz, and perhaps a second 5GHz band if we’re talking about a triband router.

The problem is that you can only connect to one of those bands at a time. When you add their top speeds together, the result is a highly inflated figure that doesn’t represent the speeds you’ll actually experience. If it’s a triband mesh router that uses that third band as a dedicated connection between the router and 우리카지노쿠폰 its extenders, 우리카지노계열 then that band’s speeds don’t directly apply to your device connections at all. 

To make matters worse, those top speeds on the box are actually theoretical maximums derived from lab-based manufacturer tests that don’t take real-world factors like distance, physical obstructions or network congestion into account. Even at close range, your actual connection will be a lot slower.

None of that stops manufacturers from using those speed ratings to describe how fast their products are. For instance, that hypothetical AX6000 router might claim to support speeds of up to 6,000Mbps — which is nonsense. A router is only as fast as its fastest band. Don’t be fooled.

Your ISP sets the speed limit

Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter how fast your router is — you’ll only be able to connect as fast as the plan from your internet service provider allows. If you’re paying for download speeds of, say, 100Mbps, then that’s as fast as your router will transmit data from the cloud. Period.

That’s a significant limitation these days. In our own top speed tests, we’re seeing a growing number of routers that can comfortably hit speeds of 1,000Mbps or faster — but with the average fixed broadband speed in the US currently sitting at just over 100Mbps (or less, if your ISP throttles your connection), few of us can hope to surf the web as fast as that anytime soon.

That isn’t to say that fast routers aren’t worthwhile. Upgrading to a faster, more powerful access point can help you get the most out of your internet connection, especially when you’re connecting at range. To that end, be sure to keep an eye on our latest reviews as you shop around to get a good sense of the specific routers that might be the best fir for your home. We’re constantly testing new models and updating our best lists with new test data.

New routers that support Wi-Fi 6 like the Ubiquiti AmpliFi Alien are available now — but for most, it isn’t a priority upgrade just yet.

Chris Monroe/CNET Wi-Fi 6 is here — but it’s still early

Wi-Fi 6 is the newest, fastest version of Wi-Fi, and it’s the main reason we’re starting to see so many new routers capable of hitting gigabit speeds with ease. You can read more about the way the speedy new standard works in my full Wi-Fi 6 explainer, but the gist is that it lets your router send more information more efficiently to multiple devices at once.

There are all sorts of new routers available this year that support Wi-Fi 6, including ones that cost a lot less than you’d expect — but there are still relatively few Wi-Fi 6 client devices outside of early flagships like the iPhone 11 and the Samsung Galaxy S10. Wi-Fi 6 is backward-compatible, mind you, so it’ll still work with your existing, older-gen Wi-Fi devices. It just won’t do anything to speed them up, because those older devices don’t support the new features that make Wi-Fi 6 faster than before.

Eventually, we’re going to start seeing Wi-Fi 6 support in things like media streamers, tablets, smart home gadgets and other common client devices. As you fill your home with devices like those, a Wi-Fi 6 router will become a more meaningful upgrade (and, again, it’ll help if ISP speeds can play catch-up in the next few years, too). For now, though, it’s more of a future-proofing extra than a must-have.

A mesh router like the three-piece Eero setup tested here can help spread a stronger signal throughout your home.

Steve Conaway/CNET Don’t forget about coverage

We tend to fixate on speeds when we talk about routers, but the truth is that there are really only two Wi-Fi speeds that matter in most cases: “fast enough,” and “not fast enough.” After all, having a blazing fast connection in the same room as the router is great, but it means little if you can’t get a strong signal when you’re trying to stream a late-night Netflix binge in your bedroom on the other side of the house.

That’s why, for most people, the most meaningful move you can make for your home network is to upgrade from a standalone, single-point router to an expandable mesh system that uses multiple devices to better spread a speedy signal throughout your house. Mesh systems like those typically won’t hit top speeds that are quite as high as a single-point router, but they make up for it by delivering Wi-Fi that’s “fast enough” to all corners of your home.