Upgrading from wifi 5 to wifi 6 and looking for suggestions

[Listedguru2]

I am looking to upgrade from my aging and EOL Netgear Nighthawk AC2100 router to something in the wifi 6 realm. I would possibly be interested in a wifi 7 device if the price was right. Anyway on my shortlist I the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX 6000 which seems to get high marks all around. I've also read good things about the GLi net Flint 2 (MT 6000) which can be had on Amazon for a great price currently (in the US). One other other one that caught my eye in the Asus RT-Be92U which is a Tri-Bank wifi 7 router. I like the fact that all of these have (2) 2.5 ports for a bit of future proofing. On something like the GT-AX6000 should I be worried that it will be EOL quicker that the others I mentioned as it's been out over (2) years already?

My current Netgear Nighthawk AC2100 has enough range for my enviroment it's just time for an upgrade and honestly I would think any of the above routers would be a major? step up from it? I'm also open to other suggestions for a router as well and I'm not really attached to any one brand. I just want something that's going to be reliable and hopefully last at least (5) years.

 

[Listedguru2]

OP here. Just tossing another contender into the mix: Asus RX-AX88U Pro. I think it's very similar to the GT-AX-6000 but not sure if it might be supported longer?

 

[tgl]

Really it's impossible to give useful recommendations with so little information. For starters:

• What's the speed of your internet connection? Do you foresee upgrading it anytime soon?
• How many wifi clients do you have? How many are wifi 6, 6E, or 7 capable? Do you foresee those answers changing significantly anytime soon?
• What's your wifi environment like, that is what sort of competition do you face for airtime? Are you out in the boonies with no near neighbors, or at the opposite extreme do you live in a high-rise with a bunch of tech-savvy wifi-loving neighbors just a few meters away?
• What's your wifi environment like part 2: what country do you live in?
• You said the AC2100 covers your living space adequately, but now is the time to be absolutely sure about that. Have you checked signal strength and performance in every corner where you might want wifi service?

What I'm mainly trying to probe for is whether you'll really be happy with only one AP or whether it's time for more than one, and also whether you should be considering wifi 6E not just 6 so that you can move into the relatively-virgin 6GHz spectrum. (I would not recommend buying wifi 7 gear just yet: too new, too expensive, too many bugs and interoperability issues. If you were doing fine with wifi 5 then you don't need wifi 7 yet. But 6E could be worth the money if you face a lot of competition for 5GHz airtime and are willing to upgrade to 6E-ready clients.)

 

[KGB7]

Take a looking at Glinet GL-MT6000. Its currently on sale for $122. 6 lan ports, two of them are 2.5Gbps. Arm8 CPU, 4x4 MIMO on both bands, great support by Glinet and by Openwrt community. Bought mine two weeks ago and I won't be buying another router for many years.

 

[Listedguru2]

Really it's impossible to give useful recommendations with so little information. For starters:

• What's the speed of your internet connection? Do you foresee upgrading it anytime soon?
• How many wifi clients do you have? How many are wifi 6, 6E, or 7 capable? Do you foresee those answers changing significantly anytime soon?
• What's your wifi environment like, that is what sort of competition do you face for airtime? Are you out in the boonies with no near neighbors, or at the opposite extreme do you live in a high-rise with a bunch of tech-savvy wifi-loving neighbors just a few meters away?
• What's your wifi environment like part 2: what country do you live in?
• You said the AC2100 covers your living space adequately, but now is the time to be absolutely sure about that. Have you checked signal strength and performance in every corner where you might want wifi service?

What I'm mainly trying to probe for is whether you'll really be happy with only one AP or whether it's time for more than one, and also whether you should be considering wifi 6E not just 6 so that you can move into the relatively-virgin 6GHz spectrum. (I would not recommend buying wifi 7 gear just yet: too new, too expensive, too many bugs and interoperability issues. If you were doing fine with wifi 5 then you don't need wifi 7 yet. But 6E could be worth the money if you face a lot of competition for 5GHz airtime and are willing to upgrade to 6E-ready clients.)

My current internet speed is 1.2Gbps so with overprovisioning it's about 1.4Gbps. That should increase to 2Gbps+ once they finish the upgrades in my area (probably within 6 months). I will need to buy a new cable modem to take advantage of those higher speeds so I figure I might as well get a router that has 2.5Gbps ports.

Probably 10 or so wifi clients max at any one time.

I live in a subdivision and the houses are pretty close together. I probably see 6 (or more) wifi networks around me. There is just 3 of us in the house but we do have a kid that likes to game on Xbox online sometimes. Also we live in the US

Yes I have checked signal strength and performance in every corner where I use it and the AC2100 Netgear router does a great time. For reference the router is in the basement and I live in a 2 story colonial with the bedrooms up on the second floor and the wifi signal is the bedrooms is great. Honestly using the Netgear as our only AP has served us well as did our previous DLink router that we used for probably 8 years or so and it resided in the same location as the Netgear. So just to be clear I would need a router with wifi 6E in order to get access to the 6Ghz spectrum? I guess I hadn't thought about that as I don't think I have any 6E ready wifi clients (but I'll have to double check). I thought I read that the 6Ghz spectrum doesn't travel very far so you would need to be close to the AP in order to take advantage of it but I might be mistaken? If that is the case maybe adding a second AP might make sense (or at the least the ability to add a second AP) should the need arise.

Thanks for taking the time to reply and answer my questions and I look forward to further educating myself

 

[Listedguru2]

Take a looking at Glinet GL-MT6000. Its currently on sale for $122. 6 lan ports, two of them are 2.5Gbps. Arm8 CPU, 4x4 MIMO on both bands, great support by Glinet and by Openwrt community. Bought mine two weeks ago and I won't be buying another router for many years.

Yes that is a fantastic price so it seems. Are you running the stock firmware? How stable has it been?

 

[KGB7]

Yes that is a fantastic price so it seems. Are you running the stock firmware? How stable has it been?

Running GLinet firmware and its very stable. Both Openwrt 21 and Openwrt 24, not at the same time obviously. I tried official Openwrt firmware 23.x, but I ran out of patience setting it up and gave up.

Since its running openwrt, there are many many packages that can be installed directly from with in the router with out using SSH. It has built in database of over 1,000 packages that you can use search function and install it. Either with in GUI or with in Luci/Openwrt.

 

[degrub]

6 GHz needs open air to clients. Can have difficulties with walls that 5 GHz barely gets through.

 

[Tech9]

That should increase to 2Gbps+

There is just 3 of us in the house

Chasing ISP speed with your wallet and with minimal user experience improvements. Make sure you have good explanation why router replacement was really necessary. Your wife may ask. She'll be doing the same things online in the same way and may or may not notice the "improvements" made.

 

[tgl]

6GHz does have shorter range than 5GHz. That can be a feature as well as a bug: in dense environments like high-rise apartments, it helps to limit the number of neighbors who can interfere with you. It sounds like you're not in a situation where that helps you though.

The other thing about 6GHz is that it's far easier to find a clear 160MHz-wide channel than it is in 5GHz. So if you're hoping to get 1Gbps or better over wifi, you really ought to think about 6E gear --- with the understanding that you'll only get those top speeds when fairly near the router, like same room or so. There is something to be said for @Tech9 's position that speed-chasing may not be a good use of your money, though. 3 people are unlikely to saturate a 1Gbps pipe.

 

[Tech9]

My weekly traffic for 4 people including work from home and streaming is attached below. The peak is under 100Mbps. I have 100Mbps, 300Mbps and 1000Mbps residential ISP lines and without running a speed test or downloading something big I can't tell the difference. With fast ISP you download in a month or two everything you are interested in and want to have it locally and then have nothing much to do with it. Still paying for it though*.

All Gigabit hardware with Wi-Fi 6 access points. Wired clients get 940Mbps, wireless up to 860Mbps on 80MHz wide non-DFS channel.

* - content creators are different category users with different needs. If this is the case - fast upload ISP and better equipment, not a home router.

 

[sl4fko]

Take a looking at Glinet GL-MT6000. Its currently on sale for $122. 6 lan ports, two of them are 2.5Gbps. Arm8 CPU, 4x4 MIMO on both bands, great support by Glinet and by Openwrt community. Bought mine two weeks ago and I won't be buying another router for many years.

Hardware bugs reported according to openwrt forum. Not sure if it deserves a recommendation...

 

[Tech9]

Keep in mind many people come to forums when they have an issue. You mostly read about issues.

 

[KGB7]

Hardware bugs reported according to openwrt forum. Not sure if it deserves a recommendation...

What hardware bugs? Ive been on that forum every day for over two weeks and I havent seen any hardware bug reports.