jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I'm thinking about getting a new router. I'm using a Linksys WRE54g Router(WRT54GS?) that I bought in 2005. Occasionally, the living room TV pauses and says the network speed isn't fast enough. I'll have to check and see if it's wired directly from the other room. There must have been some improvements made since 2005. I'm will to hear your opinions on the current crop or routers.

The English language needs lots more words. If you google "best router," you get both the woodworking tool and the electronic item. So many have totally different meanings.

klevco47 Loc: Eastham Ma Cape Cod

I bought a Netgear AC1600 and a 750 netgear extender, the whole house is running great. I used to get pauses while zoooming, no longer and no buffering with the TV.

djlouden Loc: Ocala, Florida

That router is/was a work horse had one myself. After a a mess of a time using the Netgear Orbi mesh and trying to get my older Ring devices to sink (not) I ended up abandoning it and after much searching ended up choosing an Asus RT-AC3100. It's worked well for me the past 10 months.

Happy shooting and computing

MrBossHK Loc: The West Valley of Phoenix metro area

I have found the Netgear Orbi Mesh router and satellite to perform flawlessly in my 2500 sq. ft. two-story home. All of the wireless devices connected effortlessly and the connections are continuously maintained. We are heavy streamers and my wife works from home and this router system really hauls the freight.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1526725-REG/netgear_rbk852_orbi_wireless_router_ax6000.html

It is certainly not the least expensive option but it more than covers the entire house, the garage and the front and back yards. I bought from B&H because they beat the big "A" on the price, plus there was an instant discount coupon code at the time I purchased. The only issue was with FedEx missing the stated initial delivery date by four days. Judging from recent posts about FedEx, I now think that I was actually somewhat fortunate to receive it only 4 days later than stated.

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

You might try adding an extender as I had too. Even with my Linksys (Cisco) WRT 3200ACM which is one of the best, LOL. Routers are like Air conditioning, they don't like walls or going around corners. Have you tried moving the router? That in itself can make a world of difference. Or as I did, add an extender for the wife to be able to work from home efficiently from the far end of the house where the signal was at it's weakest. Prior to the extender, the WiFi signal where she set up her office, really was weak. I can't move my router to the hallway for direct line of sight (which is the best) so I bought a Linksys RE7000 extender. VIOLA! She 's all set. Her upload and download speeds are almost as good as my hard wired desktop located alongside the router. You can check the best place for it or the extender with your iPhone, Try using the Wi-Fi Sweetspot App....As far as routers, yours is a G standard, if you buy, look for N, the N standard has a transmission range from 50Mbps/s to 144 Mbps/s. The G standards is 2-4 time less than N

melismus Loc: Chesapeake Bay Country

A secretary and a machinist would have different views of a file card.

jerold222 Loc: Southern Minnesota

wireloose

You will see a huge improvement in speed and range. I have a D-Link AX4800 which is the first one to cover the whole house. The little Linksys extenders are handy for weak spots, used them with my previous router for the back yard.

cdayton

I use a TP-Link AC1900 that works fine for streaming, etc. It resides in a front bedroom (home office) and I get good reception throughout the house and back deck.

Sensei

It might not be a router problem. Recently my computers were all going slow. My girl friend who sells on line thought we needed new computers. In addition a few tv stations (but not all) were giving me a problem. I was starting to think in terms of a newer router, but in the past had found that the internet connection, was the problem. In some cases this has been the result of a loose wire, or water where the cable enters the building. So I called the service provider instead. Problem wasn't mine, but theirs. Before you spend money on a router, give them a call, and have the service techs check their equipment.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

Jerry, what d/l and u/l speeds does your provider give you? Is it Docsis 3.0 or 3.1? How big is your home? Do you need wifi outside and/or in your garage and/or basement? How many devices are typically connected at once to your router wifi wirelessly or hardwired? How future proof do you want to be? For example, our ranch style home is 2500 sq ft above grade and 2000 below of finished home. We have 1gig speed coming into the house. Prior to a year ago, I had an Asus gateway combination modem/router that maxed out at 300 mb d/l wired and half that over wifi. To get coverage in the basement, I needed an extender that also halved the wifi again. Finally, I went with the provider’s (Comcast) rent gateway for $14/mon. I get 460-485 mb/s wifi every including the garage on the ground floor and still use the extender downstairs and see 230+ mb/s. If I wanted to replace the gateway with a modem and router system to achieve the same performance, I’d need to spend at least $475, probably $500 or more. Simple math says I won’t break even for at least 3 years, probably more. As much as I’d like to have a nice mesh system connected to a kick butt Docsis 3.1 modem, it doesn’t make sense (yet). Your situation may be different....

EdJ0307 Loc: out west someplace

A wood worker and a computer tech would have a different view of a router.

unlucky2 Loc: Hemet Ca.

If looking at new routers look for WiFi 6 compliance. Tri-band, mu'min . Ac and ax are using the 5 gig band, very fast, very wide but most effective in an line of sight environment, N uses the 2.4 gig band for long distance and obstacle avoidance. WiFi 6 supports all previous bands adds smart switching and load management. In the short haul environment WiFi 6 supports gig speeds (great for NAS & SAN). Our cellphones are WiFi default, prior to implementing WiFi 6 when moving from the indoor enviroment to the outdoor enviorment our cellphones dropped their wifi connection and moved to a cellular enviorment. Now the router and the cellphones move from the 5gig band to the 2.4 gig band and back again as required.
Not all manufactures implament WiFi 6 in the same manner, some require hard wiring for the nodes, others reserve one of the 5 gig band for back haul. My Links mesh system reserves a single channel on a 5 gig band for back haul and uses all 3 bands for device connection.

neillaubenthal

A 2005 router is pretty dated and a newer one will have better processors and more throughput. However...even more important is what version of wifi your old one does and what version your TV and other devices support...unless they’re hooked up with Ethernet cables. In the latter case...a 2005 router probably supports 10baseT Ethernet and maybe fast Ethernet or 100BaseT...in both cases the number is the speed. Current routers probably support gigabit Ethernet up that means you need cat 6. Bales instead of cat 5...but cables are cheap. For wifi devices...ignoring the new labeling mechanisms of wifi 1 through 6 or 7 (can’t remember, they just changed the names to make it better)...all the wifi bands are 802.11 with a letter after...generally a, b, g, n, ac, and x I think is the latest with each one getting progressively faster. You need a router that handles at lest what your fastest device has...the bands are backwards compatible.

Once you figure that out...then it is buying a brand and you get more with more expensive ones. Under $100 ones are decent if you’re not into gaming and/or your incoming internet speed is 300Mb/sec or less...more than 300 I would go with the $150ish models. I am partial to TP-Link brand these days but most brands in a price range are pretty equivalent.

I would stay from the generic ‘extenders as most of them really don’t help much...if you have a large house and lots of devices then perhaps a mesh system is needed but we would need more info to make a recommendation there. I’m a computer geek and a single TP-Link covers our 1800 square foot concrete block house which has over a dozen devices connected to it.

A lot depends on your devices, house size and construction, incoming bandwidth speed, and needs.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Jerry, router’s have come a long way since the ubiquitous Linksys 54G series. I have a stack of them in my basement, and they worked fine for many years, but internet speeds and router protocols have moved on. Before deciding on a new standard/speed such as N or AC or..., I’d make a couple of basic measurements first. Download a copy of Ookla speed test and check the wired speed directly off your modem, and you can do the same thing at your TV using your laptop or tablet or phone - that will give you a good starting point for your decision. And unless the price difference is exorbitant, you might want to buy a router with speed capability faster than what your current modem is as Internet speeds and the demands of connected devices are continuously going up. I think you’ll find that a wired connection, if feasible, will almost always be faster than WIFI and that extenders (and any other network device in the path that introduces an extra “hop”) will increase latency.