Speed Of Wireless Routers Vs Speed Of Internet Connection

Iqbal_MIqbal_M Posts: 4,079
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One thing that confuses me. Companies like Netgear sell routers like this:-

http://www.netgear.co.uk/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/R8500.aspx?utm_source=scrolling-header-tablet&utm_medium=vwo&utm_campaign=q2uxtesting&cid=q2ux-gwm-uk-scrolling-header-tablet

The router offers Wifi speeds of 5.3 GB. Yet, the best internet connection speeds in the UK only offer 300 MB on Virgin Media. Why is there such a big gap in speeds?

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  • MAWMAW Posts: 38,777
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    Iqbal_M wrote: »
    One thing that confuses me. Companies like Netgear sell routers like this:-

    http://www.netgear.co.uk/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/R8500.aspx?utm_source=scrolling-header-tablet&utm_medium=vwo&utm_campaign=q2uxtesting&cid=q2ux-gwm-uk-scrolling-header-tablet

    The router offers Wifi speeds of 5.3 GB. Yet, the best internet connection speeds in the UK only offer 300 MB on Virgin Media. Why is there such a big gap in speeds?

    You will never see 5.3Gb, there's quite a lot of overhead on wireless. But you can access other devices on your network at high speed. Download a 4K video on your laptop, and stream it to your TV without a glitch, for instance.
  • david16david16 Posts: 14,821
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    And you will get "up to" a maximum of 300MB internet connection speed (as per the literature they use) rather than a guaranteed internet connection speed of 300MB.

    If it drops to a 100MB or a 30MB connection speed, they can claim they offer what they promised when people phone up and complain about speeds of less than the full 300MB.
  • s2ks2k Posts: 7,410
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    Iqbal_M wrote: »
    The router offers Wifi speeds of 5.3 GB. Yet, the best internet connection speeds in the UK only offer 300 MB on Virgin Media. Why is there such a big gap in speeds?
    You can get faster than internet connections than 300Mbit if you happen to be in the right area and/or are prepared to cough up the cash. An FTTP connection can get 330Mbit via Infinity 4 or equivalent service. If you live in an apartment you may also be able to get 1000mbit via Hyperoptic. In these scenarios the user will likely have modern fibre cabling all the way to their property, wheras the rest of us have miles of ancient copper.

    The sad fact is that until we see some massive changes in government policy on broadband delivery and regulation, we are unlikely to see any signifcant speed leaps in the near future. Until this is resolved we will only get minor bumps through short-term workarounds.

    Aside from all this there is an increasing number of users with a million and one devices that transfer/stream stuff around their own internal network. They may be lumbered with a slow broadband link but a decent router and adaptor at least means they should have decent transfer speeds internally. It's also a nice big number that the manufacturers can throw around to get one up on the competing products ;-)
  • Helmut10Helmut10 Posts: 2,431
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    That number is a theoretical maximum assuming you have the same specced hardware elsewhere in the system. Your Internal Network, NAS boxes for storage and streaming for example, not the internet.

    Realistically you never get anywhere near that, so it's really about getting a reliable 2 Gb/s with a good wireless strength, going down at the most distant points.

    So very broadly speaking it equates to a 1-2 Gb/s wired network connection. Most gear now has 1 Gb/s wired.

    So it's really not that over the top.

    Netgear should sack their box designer, the ugliest boxes I have ever seen.
  • Iqbal_MIqbal_M Posts: 4,079
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    Helmut10 wrote: »
    That number is a theoretical maximum assuming you have the same specced hardware elsewhere in the system. Your Internal Network, NAS boxes for storage and streaming for example, not the internet.

    Realistically you never get anywhere near that, so it's really about getting a reliable 2 Gb/s with a good wireless strength, going down at the most distant points.

    So very broadly speaking it equates to a 1-2 Gb/s wired network connection. Most gear now has 1 Gb/s wired.

    So it's really not that over the top.

    Netgear should sack their box designer, the ugliest boxes I have ever seen.

    Yes, I get that. However, surely that is like using the fire hose from a fire engine and connecting it to a kitchen tap in order to get rid of a fire from a burning building?
  • Helmut10Helmut10 Posts: 2,431
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    Whilst yours might be a simple home setup and in that case your example is very much over the top.
    However, everyone's setup is not like your simple scenario where all you require is something like 3-10x your maximum download speed.
  • zx50zx50 Posts: 91,227
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    Iqbal_M wrote: »
    One thing that confuses me. Companies like Netgear sell routers like this:-

    http://www.netgear.co.uk/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/R8500.aspx?utm_source=scrolling-header-tablet&utm_medium=vwo&utm_campaign=q2uxtesting&cid=q2ux-gwm-uk-scrolling-header-tablet

    The router offers Wifi speeds of 5.3 GB. Yet, the best internet connection speeds in the UK only offer 300 MB on Virgin Media. Why is there such a big gap in speeds?

    Virgin Media don't offer the fastest UK internet speed. Hyperoptic offer a 1Gbit service. The fastest service that I can see on Virgin's website is 'up to' 200Mbits. Anyway, our internet speeds aren't exactly steaming ahead right now. To be honest though, a 1Gbit connection should be absolutely fine for the next 8-10 years....when we do eventually get one. I think the speeds of routers will always be much faster than our internet speeds.
  • daveh75daveh75 Posts: 2,635
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    There's several altnets offering 1Gbps, and one of them, Gigaclear have been trialling a 5Gbps service
  • RoushRoush Posts: 4,366
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    BT have offered symmetrical 10 Gbps for a couple years now. Frightfully expensive though!
  • zx50zx50 Posts: 91,227
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    daveh75 wrote: »
    There's several altnets offering 1Gbps, and one of them, Gigaclear have been trialling a 5Gbps service

    As usual, near the South.
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