I'm having a hard timne figuring out how a new router improved your download
speed by 20% since your connection to the internet is only a fraction of the
speed of any local router connections. Most hispeed internet connections,
dsl, cable, etc. average somewhere around 1 to 2 meg. Local hardwired
ethernet is either 10meg or 100 meg. Most local are 100meg. I'm thinking
you did not do a valid comparison. It's hard to do a valid comparison as
your hispeed internet connection speed also varies depending on who else is
active in your immediate area as you share the routers belonging to your
provider with your neighbors. As well as the type and length of the
connection and the percentage of errors.


"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
I ran out of ports on my old four-port wired Netgear router, so, instead of
buying a switch and adding it on, I bought a wired Linksys eight-port
router. Ran a speed test immediately afterwards and noticed to my delight a
20% uptick in download speed. My old Netgear router was about five years
old, I guess, and the Linksys router I bought was introduced two years ago,
I was told.

Interestingly, the number of wired routers available is down substantially
since the advent of WiFi. I suppose almost everyone is going wireless in
the home, but I still think wired is mo' betta. When we built this house,
I connected several rooms with Cat5e cable. I do use wireless at the
kitchen table sometimes, and it works just fine, but it is not nearly as
fast as wired.

The new router is a BEFSR81. Well under $100, if you're shopping for one.

I'm having a hard timne figuring out how a new router improved your
download
speed by 20% since your connection to the internet is only a fraction of
the
speed of any local router connections.

Believe it. Newer routers, especially ones targeted toward the 'gamer'
market, are generally faster at handling the overhead of routing your
packets. Even more so when there are several computers hanging off the
switch ports too.

I found my old router worked best when I hung it off another switch instead
of plugging the PCs right into it. The PC-to-PC traffic for file sharing
and such was enough of a burden to also slow that older router's internet
handling.

Here's a comparison chart to consider:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/index...per&Itemid=156

So while you're certainly going to be limited to the total uplink/downlink
speed to your ISP, that router sitting in between may be slowing things down
a lot more than you'd imagine.

-Bill Kearney