My brother was having a ton of issues with his home WIFI network. One quick look and his 7 to 10-year-old WIFI router suggested he needed a new one.
The number of packets we expected early generations of 802.11 wifi to push barely anticipated the huge amounts of internet traffic we currently sling around. Ten plus years later, a router that was perfectly fine for surfing early YouTube video and maaaaybe occasionally streaming a movie is no longer adequate. My brother is paying for a connection that'll burst well over 100mbps and should sustain 60-80mbps no problem. Sadly, he hadn't upgraded his WIFI router in forever.
His 100mbps pipe was limited to around 20mpbs. Laden with packet loss whenever 2-3 people were doing much beyond web surfing, the old box was overloaded. With 3-4 phones, 2-3 laptops, 2-3 tablets, and two tv's attempting to use this tiny, not much bigger than a deck of cards, router connections were hard to maintain.
My brother was looking at all sort of online configuration options with Google Home wifi and other tools. Years ago the solution for bad connectivity in parts of the house, or failing connections, was to add these god awful WIFI repeaters. They rarely worked as described very well, or for very long. I suggested he simply buy one big honking wifi base-station with great antenna and a lot of CPU.
Enter the NETGEAR Nighthawk X4S AC2600 4x4 Dual Band Smart WiFi Router.
A few years ago I switched from an OG Apple Airport to a slightly older model Netgear. Problems that multiple Airport Express units and all sorts of Apple Wireless Distribution Protocol bullshittery couldn't solve disappeared by a router with adequate CPU and omnipole antennas! There are a lot of cool features built into the router, but for home use simply plugging it in,, renaming and passwording it took care of everything.
My brother plugged in the New X4S AC2600 model and magically his network speeds jumped from 20mbps to over 100mbps when testing with a wide variety of speed testing sites. He downloaded the Netgear app and configured the router with no problems!
Packetloss is gone. His wireless range is now far, far extended beyond the old router. His entire 2000 sqft home is blanketed with sweet, sweet wifi. His yard, deck and patio are all now inside his WIFI range and phones no longer drop conversations as we walk around.
If you haven't upgraded your router this decade, you might be paying for internet access you can't actually use.
