Solved Will upgrading my router speed up my internet connection?

[domdomrys]

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?)

 

[zigzag3143]

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?)

The choke point is the ISP not the router. What are you supposed to be getting from them?

 

[domdomrys]

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?)

The choke point is the ISP not the router. What are you supposed to be getting from them?

it doesn't say on the orange website. but, will changing dsl to adsl speed up the connection?

 

[zigzag3143]

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?)

The choke point is the ISP not the router. What are you supposed to be getting from them?

it doesn't say on the orange website. but, will changing dsl to adsl speed up the connection?

Too many variables to speculate. ALL dsl is adsl. Will the new router speed you up, IMHO, I doubt it.

 

[2xg]

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.

 

[domdomrys]

Yeah, but thinking that my router is from the year about 1999, and orange gives unlimited gb per month?

 

[jimbo45]

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

 

[Corazon]

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.

 

[3D Jed]

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.

 

[jimbo45]

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

 

[seavixen32]

I'm with Sky on their unlimited broadband package in what is, unfortunately, a low-speed area until BT get their act together and put fibre-optic cables in.

I had a D-link wireless-g router, which gave me a maximum download speed of 1.5 Mbps and with a connection that dropped on a daily basis.

I managed to get Sky to replace the router with a Sagem wireless-n router and my line speed has increased by 33% to just over 2 Mbps with no dropped connection so far.

So, in answer to your question, a better router should give you a better line speed, but whatever you have you are still at the mercy of what your ISP can provide, which in turn is determined by the current infrastructure.

 

[3D Jed]

re poor speeds

Its a real problem in the UK the way ISPs quote speed as 'up to 20Mbit' etc where you get 20Mbit next door to the telephone exchange, then it drops off with distance eg 2km = 5Mbit. Of course the 5Mbit depemds on condition of the copper wire, junction boxes etc.

Fibre, having greater capacity, has less contention issues than ADSL. My friend is on a budget (high contention) adsl deal and her speed drops from 2M to 0.5M at peak times. I don't see any drop on FTTC.

Living in a large city, I'm 200m from the FTTC box. People out in the country will not see FTTC for years, and some are still on dial-up.

see what speed your neighbour is getting

UK Broadband Speed Test with Broadband StreetStats

 

[domdomrys]

Thanks guys! It helped a lot. Now i'm gonna replace my router with this : Linksys by Cisco Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54G2 - Cable, WiFi, Virgin Media | eBay or this: WGR614 I still have to decide

 

[whs]

You are talking about a $40 investment for e.g. a Netgear N router. I think it is worth a try and it should be faster. And if you have no N capability on your system, get a dongle for little money (preferably also from Netgear or the same make as the router).

 

[domdomrys]

You are talking about a $40 investment for e.g. a Netgear N router. I think it is worth a try and it should be faster. And if you have no N capability on your system, get a dongle for little money (preferably also from Netgear or the same make as the router).

then i'd have to buy 3 dongles. not worth it. all of the computers are pretty close to the router

 

[whs]

How close are they. If they are really close, you may get away with an ethernet switch and hard wire the PCs.

 

[domdomrys]

They're not THAT close but i get 5 bars on every single one, if i ethernet them thee will be too much wires. One of the computers is a laptop

 

[jimbo45]

re poor speeds

Its a real problem in the UK the way ISPs quote speed as 'up to 20Mbit' etc where you get 20Mbit next door to the telephone exchange, then it drops off with distance eg 2km = 5Mbit. Of course the 5Mbit depemds on condition of the copper wire, junction boxes etc.

Fibre, having greater capacity, has less contention issues than ADSL. My friend is on a budget (high contention) adsl deal and her speed drops from 2M to 0.5M at peak times. I don't see any drop on FTTC.

Living in a large city, I'm 200m from the FTTC box. People out in the country will not see FTTC for years, and some are still on dial-up.

see what speed your neighbour is getting

UK Broadband Speed Test with Broadband StreetStats

Hi all
Then IMO it's FALSE advertising to charge the customer for something at the time the customer is likely to want to use it --i.e Evenings and Weekends after work when 99% of the time the speed will be DRASTICALLY reduced and is totally different to what the "Sales Spiel" offered.

I'm not saying that it's possible to upgrade creaking infrastructure in 5 Mins -- The London Underground system is an example of that where it will take YEARS of massive investments and Engineering work to fix it -- often a penalty of being the first in the World to implement something --like a Metro system -- later implementations in different places can build on more modern technology / equipment and experiences of the original implementors -- but the customer should be made aware of LIKELY speeds at times he wants to use the system -- not the theoretical maximum and be charged accordingly.

To me the whole charging policy of B.T is being dishonest in the extreme -- but like Politicians -- do we actually EXPECT commercials to contain elements of truth in them.

Some countries do a lot better than others in this regard but it's still not overall satisfactory ANYWHERE (not just in the UK).

Cheers
jimbo