Men, what’s a good modem/router combo for WFH?

6 comments

1. 2.4ghz has a longer range but is slower. 5ghz is much faster but has a shorter range so you kinda just need to pick your poison. Wireless will never be as fast a wired connection so long as your ISP isn’t throttling below that.

   Every once in a while give the modem and router a reset since some retail grade equipment can get bogged down after a while.

   Also if you have a lot of people in the family using up bandwidth while you’re trying to have a meeting that might not be helping you either.

   Sometimes it’s the computer that’s a piece of crap and not the networking equipment. My old work laptop lagged horribly in meetings but that’s because it didn’t have the resources to run my apps + be in a meeting at the same time.

2. You shouldn’t be lagging with 400up/down mbps. Is your internet connection wired? I’d test that first. It sounds like there is possibly an issue, not that you just need an upgrade. Do you use one of those usb-looking things as an internet adapter? Having an old one of those was a cause for my slow internet a decade ago. For reference, I have wireless internet on my laptop and get 300up/down with 5 ping with Verizon’s hardware. I would take a guess and say it is a hardware issue.

3. run a network cable. Wifi is for games and bullshit that isn’t important.

4. I just use my router from 2009.

   No complaints, but it does have like 6 antennas that sometimes get in the way

5. OK, let’s start from the top. If your router is 4 years old it’s a good choice to replace it. Personally, I am happy as a clam with the Ubiquiti lineup of stuff, but it’s pretty damn advanced level for setup and deployment.

   You can get a roughly equivalent unit, the TP-Link AX1800, for less than a hundred bucks or so on Amazon, sorted.

   During initial setup, tell it DHCP – 99.9% likelihood that’s what your cable modem is emitting.

   (existing setup getting good speed on 5ghz tells us the modem is fine).

   Now, get that unit as physically close to your client PC as possible. Depending on how many wired devices you have, this could get interesting. Cat5, Cat6, whatever patch cords you buy in whatever length you need. Get brown or black ones so they can be hidden easier. I’m thinking that the router goes on top of a bookshelf in the room underneath your desk, you know what I’m saying?

   Second part is the wifi adapter on your WFH computer. If you get a new router, it would be helpful to have a new wifi card on your laptop, or one that supports the best wifi standard that your router does (the above mentioned one supports 802.11ax – so you’d need a wifi adapter that also supports 802.11ax

   So https://www.amazon.com/WiFi-6-Router-Gigabit-Wireless/dp/B08H8ZLKKK/ plugged into the cable modem, and https://www.amazon.com/BrosTrend-USB-WiFi-Adapter-1201Mbps/dp/B09TKG3NMY/ plugged into the laptop.

   Position the USB dingus as close to the router as you can get it. I like a 3m command hook and a wire tie to just dangle the dingus from it’s USB cable on the side of the desk.

   Configurate and test.

   By reducing the physical distance between devices, we increase the power levels that they’re seeing. Think of the wifi radio as a light bulb – the closer you get to it, the better you can see. It also reduces the interference we’re subjected to by other wifi networks nearby. That same light bulb is a lot easier to see when it’s between us and the neighbor’s light bulb.

   I haven’t looked at home networking stuff in a while, and I’m not amused. The search for “wifi usb 802.11ax” on Amazon gave me an entire page without a single actual brand name. “BrosTrend”, “Edup”, “uGreen”, those aren’t actual companies or brands.

   Oh I lied, there’s TP-Link and Asus!

   https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-usb-wifi-adapter-pc/dp/B08D72GSMS/

   Not too shabby, get a USB 3.0 extension cord to go with it though.

   running a cable is the proper and correct solution, but even without being able to do that, there’s a lot you can do to make life better without spending a million bucks.

6. It’s not a bandwidth issue (at least not on your side of things). Zoom doesn’t really use that much. Either your ISP has their upstream bandwidth massively over subscribed and it’s just peak demand time or you’re losing packets. Dropped packets is a big source of lag. Even like 1% dropped will kill your speeds.

   Pick a site you can ping and from a Linux of Mac keep a ping running during a zoom call. See if you lose any packets. Also try pinging your own router and see if the packet loss is the WiFi.

   You should have ZERO packet loss.