Digital Home Thoughts: We all live in a WiFi World

"By 2006, we had multiple antennas and MIMO technology (spatial multiplexing and the sending of discrete data sub-streams along different paths within a single radio link) along with an upgrade to the fetal 11n spec, and sustained throughput jumped to anywhere from the 40s to the 80s in Mb/s. Performance was all over the board and patch updates seemed to be raining from the sky for a while, but everyone eventually realized that we were never going to get even remotely close to that promised 300 Mb/s 11n spec."

Routers are probably the most critical part of a home network, yet most people I know of think they are all the same. As far as Internet routing capabilities, that is probably close to true. Consumer level routers do have upper limits on how fast they can handle NAT, but most broadband options do not come close to those limits. However, routers also play the critical role in providing WiFi access, and depending on the setup, it can make a world of difference. I am a wired man; I will take an ugly blue cable running along the hallway over WiFi any day, but there is a time and a place for everything, and what router you use for your untethered goodness can make a world of difference, especially if you want to even attempt to stream content wirelessly.