RE: Do I Need a New Router when I Upgrade to Wi-Fi 6?

Andrew J — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 11:55:43 GMT

Wifi 6E routers are eye-wateringly expensive at the moment, particularly if you opt for a mesh router. I was looking at a new router recently because it was put to me that the Internet problems I was experiencing was because mine was faulty. You go for the latest model right to future-proof? Of course you do, and the latest Orbi 6E mesh router with 1 AP was around £1500!!! An Orbi Wifi 6 router and AP was around £700 so still way too expensive. At that point I decided I was right and it wasn't a router problem and OpenReach/Plusnet just needed to pull their collective fingers out.

Some good information in this post. Small households like mine (me and my wife) don't really come up against bandwidth or speed issues; I could imagine a house with 4 teenagers would be a lot different. One of my in-laws has 3 boys all of an XBox/Playstation age and all like to play on-line.

A lot of mesh routers are sold as tri-band at the moment: 2.4, 5, and backhaul for the APs. Does that mean that to get the best out of a Wifi 6E deployment you'd want a quad-band?