Upgrade your network
If a cheap router is your Wi-Fi weak link, invest in a better one
Even if you’re lucky enough to have superfast fibre broadband, chances are that the router provided by your ISP will still be cheap as chips, and won’t provide particularly good performance. If you’re looking for a quick way to upgrade your network performance then buying a faster, more modern router is the best place to start.
It’s quite likely that your existing router only supports the decade-old 802.11ac version of Wi-Fi, while the latest routers now offer the new 802.11ax standard – also known as Wi-Fi 6. This new standard provides amazing speed, but Wi-Fi 6 routers are still quite expensive, and at the moment there are only a handful of the latest Macs and iPhones that actually support Wi-Fi 6. So while a Wi-Fi 6 router is a good option for future-proofing your home network it isn’t absolutely essential right now (especially as there’s yet another version, called Wi-Fi 6E looming on the horizon too).
A more affordable upgrade is to stick with existing 802.11ac routers, but to opt for a high-speed tri-band router. The routers provided by many ISPs are often low-cost dual-band models, that transmit a Wi-Fi signal on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands. However, tri-band routers can transmit an additional signal on the 5GHz band – so that’s 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 5GHz – which makes them a lot faster. Look out for ‘tri-band’ on the packaging of any new router, as well as terms like ‘AC2000’, which simply means 802.11ac Wi-Fi running at 2,000Mbps. Larger homes with several bedrooms might need to step up to a mesh networking system (see below).