Well, i've got this router 2wire 1701hg gateway and i's VERY old. I'm thinking about upgrading it. Will it speed up my connection? (the router is DSL. if I buy a ADSL it should speed up my connection, right?)
Hello,
I highly agree with Zigzag, consider getting more bandwidth from your ISP, that will speed up your connection.
Upgrading your device to the latest one would give you more stability, more features and if you are doing network file sharing, the transfer rate might improve.
Yeah, but thinking that my router is from the year about 1999, and orange gives unlimited gb per month?
Hi there
Adding to most of the replies already made.
If you are accessing the router via a WIRELESS connection check that it's at least operating at "modern" type speeds -- if it's really old it *could* be worth replacing.
Your pre 2000 router will certainly be the older 801-b (max 11 mbs and unsuitable for faster internet connections such as current 20mbs and faster service providers). It probably also will have a max 1GB LAN connection. Modern Routers will give up to 1000 GB via a Lan (although I haven't yet seen any ISP's offering anywhere near that speed -- however on a Network the 1000 GB speed is great).
Wireless cards in modern laptops won't be a problem -- nor will the LAN card if you are connecting to the router via a LAN cable.
Have a read of this first before replacing the router. IMO it's probably worth replacing and these aren't expensive either.
Wireless router buying guide - Wireless router reviews - Computing - Which? Technology
Check also what Internet Speed you are getting -- In the UK if it's B.T you could be getting speeds as low as 0.5 Mb/s -- even mobile phone broadband is much faster than that --
BT have been known to CAP accounts drastically without telling the account holder -- on my last trip to the UK while helping a colleague with slow Internet I had to spend HOURS on the phone with a really Horrible remote call centre where the operator just refused point blank to check the speed saying the account was Paying for 20 mbs --she couldn't understand the user was only getting 0.5 mbs.
Any router will show the connection speed --and there are enough tests on the net too if you can't login to your routers control panel.
Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test
(BTW my colleague changed to SKY Broadband after our experience with BT and has been totally satisfied ever since. The woman in the Call center was obviously reading from a prepared script and was totally incapable of actually checking what speed the account was physically getting -- a 5 second test as above would have shown !!!!).
Cheers
jimbo
Agreed - if the router is that old I'd replace it, if for no other reason than it might not even support WPA/WPA2 encryption standards or have a built-in firewall that's still effective. If it only supports WEP then it's pretty much useless in terms of wireless security.
jimbo45, small correction if I may...there's no such thing as a 1000GB or even 1000Gbit LAN (yet)You were probably talking about 10/100/1000Mbit (the fastest equalling 1Gbit) speeds.
Jimbo - I think you are being unfair to BT in the UK. I get this speed uncapped for £25 pm from BT
known as Fiber to the Cabinet ie optical fiber to the cabinet at the end of the street, then copper. BT are currently testing 100Mbit in selected areas.
Hi there
All I was saying is that the account had been paying for a 20 MB connection for MONTHS but was only getting a fraction of that -- and the people (or are they just Robots) in the Call center could only mouth the same sentence over and over again -- Your account is 20 MB --- I was just telling them to actually TEST IT !!!!!!.
Just before the account switched to SKY an Engineer confirmed "Capping was used to throttle demand where the service was being severely overloaded - and in SW. London having a HUGE fairly wealthy travelling business population using the incredably popular recently introduced SKY GO service -- was simply overloading the capacity of the system to provide any sort of reasonable service.
Audio streaming is not a major problem but any sort of Video streaming -- especially at HD quality will EAT Bandwidth for breakfast.
Well to me that's a fair comment -- but 1) Let the customer know,
and 2) don't keep charging for 20 MB when you can only deliver a FRACTION of that.
I'm sure in other areas where the demand isn't so intense or there is more competition BT probably are the same as the others -- I can only go on the dreadful customer service I had while attempting to fix a colleagues problem.
The Call center attitude -- absolutely HIDEOUS and perhaps they took their lesson from these people :
Reminds me of the way they used to do Science in the time of Aristotle.
If they wanted to know how many teeth a horse had they would write all sorts of Scientific treatises on an Animal of this size and weight should have xxxx teeth if it eats yyyy kg (or whatever the unit of weight measurement was on those days).
The LAST thing anybody would do would be to open the poor wretched animal's mouth and actually COUNT them !!!.
BTW typo on Lan speeds -- yes I meant 10, 100 1000
Cheers
jimbo
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