NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
RBR50 Upgrade
I have the rbr50 and two satellites. Router is centrally located with satellites at both ends of a 2500sqft concrete 3/2 unit. Coverage was fine before recently adding six new devices. I'm connected to a 1G Xfinity plan and consistently get 900M down in the Orbi app. Not sure why I clock 150-200M down at the device? While investigating, I found out I have two 6e devices.
Is it time? If so, to what and how many? Would love to get the 960 in a two piece black edition and place at both ends of the unit. Waiting to hear back from Netscape. Would that work? Would two 860s work?
1 Reply
When you test on the orbi app, it hosts the test off the router. And it'll test hardwired. Thats why you get the 900+ speeds on the orbi app. If you really want to test it, you'll want to use an app like speedtest . net 's app. then its testing off the device you're using.
You'll find a whole range of speeds depending on if you're testing right next to the router (and connected to it) or testing from the satellites because 5ghz doesn't travel as far or through as much materials.
When I first setup my mesh systems I tested multiple locations and arrangements (1/2/3 satellites) to find the optimal setup. Sometimes moving the satellite a little closer helped and sometimes moving it further away helps more.
Or even laterally if something in the walls is blocking.
And if you have cement interior walls, you're wifi is going to struggle regardless if you have the AC version or the AX version as cement does a great job of blocking wifi.
You've probably been getting 200mbps over wifi for a while and just not realized it as most devices only need 25-40mpbs to run great. The addition of the 6E devices wouldn't cause a slow down but maybe just showed you your current limitations.
You can stream 4k at that 25-40mbps. So you really only notice the difference if you're moving a massive amount of data or speedtesting.
So is it worth upgrading? Maybe. You might get some better speeds because AX is a little more efficient with wireless and concurrent usage. Will you notice a big difference? That's tougher to tell as if the interior walls are causing your slow downs, it'll slow down AX as well.
so its kind of up to you to see if the $ is worth the increase in speeds if there is much increase.
