Upgrade my router?

[thewolfe]

I have a D-Link DI-624 router.

I'm using Verizon FIOS. Can I increase my speed by buying a new wireless router.

If so, any suggestions.

[Krom]

D-Link DIR-655

[thewolfe]

Krom,

What say you about this comment I got from a friend?
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\"You really wouldn’t see much speed difference at all, unless you move up to a wireless “N” router, but then you have to buy adapters for all the PC’s. They are on wireless G, same I have here and you which is the norm.

The router is rated at 10 mb, the internet in reality is only 1 mb so that leave 9 so there is no speed difference unless you have a LAN with a server you transferring files back and forth or applications on a server, then you would want to be hard wired into the router to get the whole 10mb for the LAN. Hope that makes sense.\"

[CDN_Merlin]

Most routers will do 10/100Mbit and not just 10Mbit.

[thewolfe]

Do you think the change would be noticeable?

[CDN_Merlin]

Most cable/DSL is less than 10MBits. If your FIOS is faster than 10Mbit, then you may see an increase. But you'll never see the full rated speed they advertise.

[Testiculese]

While some cable can get up to 10mb...you'll never see it from 90% of the servers out there. Almost all servers throttle their bandwidth. The fastest I've seen is MS at around 400kbps. The only increase you would see is if you are downloading from a dozen servers at once. (And p2p if they don't throttle that)

Upgrading your router will only give you a generally non-noticeable increase in local file copying.

[Krom]

If you had read up on the specs you would know that the D-Link DIR-655 is a wireless N draft 2.0 router. Also it's actual throughput from something on the LAN (wired) to something on the WAN (this means the speed at which it can handle sending and receiving data on the internet) is in excess of 200 mbps each way, well beyond the speed of any \"residential\" internet connection in the US.

And to be blunt your friend sounds a little clueless, or he is intentionally trying to confuse you by using a different scale to talk about the speed ratings of routers.

[thewolfe]

Thanks Krom, I could read the specs all day long and still wouldn't understand what they were saying.

I'm sorry but I'm out of my league understanding the data your giving me.

Here's my test speeds. Download: 5144 (Kbps)
Upload: 1735 (Kbps)

Bottom line: with my test speeds will the \"N\" router make a difference that would be noticeable and if I use an N draft 2.0 router do I have to add anything to my computers?

[Krom]

Bottom line: You wouldn't notice a difference even if you did add wireless N components to your computers.

The only exception is if your current router is holding you back, I would investigate and find out how fast the actual line speed is, and if you are getting anywhere near 80% or better then you won't notice a difference. One way you can test to see if the router is making a difference is by plugging your computer directly into the internet with no router and rerunning a speed test, if you get significantly better results you may want to upgrade the router, otherwise leave it alone.

[thewolfe]

Know that's something even I can understand, thanks.

[Strife]

Most cable/DSL is less than 10MBits. If your FIOS is faster than 10Mbit, then you may see an increase. But you'll never see the full rated speed they advertise.

Cable vision is 15 down 2 up... I work for them and I've seen in most cases people pulling at least 12... If you get boost its 30 down 5 up... In which case I've seen most people getting about 25-27 down on the average.

[ccb056]

Most routers' wan ports only support up to 10mbps even though on the lan side the switch does 100mbps.