Change router for faster internet?

[anyname]

I am a customer of Plusnet and use the router they supplied when signing up which is a Thomson tg585v7.Which i use at the moment. I believe i can speed up my internet by changing to a better router? I was also supplied by Plusnet with a different router when i changed my contract to unlimited download which is a Sagecom 1704n.I have a laptop which uses wireless to connect to the internet via the Thomson.I also have a desktop which is connected via a cable to the same Thomson.I am not that computer savvy and am a bit confused with different modem / router types etc.Could someone point me in right direction as to what i should buy to possibly improve my internet speed etc?

 

[Ian]

Welcome to the forums @anyname

If they supplied a new router when changing package, there may have been a good reason to do so (i.e the old one wasn't able to cope with the maximum possible speeds you can achieve). The new router has a faster WiFi connection, which should improve things on the laptop. It may be possible that the old (current) router works just fine and you'll see no change - but if the new modem is already pre-configured it should be possible to check by just swapping a few cables over.

Can you try running a speed test from this site (http://www.speedtest.net) on both the desktop and laptop and them please let us know the results. That should give some indication if there's a problem. Be sure not to use the internet connection for anything else at the time of the test, so that it gives an accurate result.

Do you know what speed line you are paying for?

 

[anyname]

Thanks for the reply Ian.I fear i am wasting your time! I have run the speed test as you asked and the result is 10.55 Mbps Download and 0.84Mbps Upload on my desktop.My laptop on wireless is 10.49Mbps Download and 0.82Mbps Upload.My ISP says i am paying for 7Mbps - 11mbps. So it seems i am within the speeds they say they supply. Just wondered though why there is such a difference in Upload and Download speeds?

 

[Ian]

Not a waste of time at all, it's good to check these things .

It looks like it's working as it should, as the wired and wireless numbers are almost identical. Your estimated speed seems almost spot on too .

If you're on an ADSL/ADSL2 plan, you may be able to upgrade to Fibre Broadband via your ISP - but it may cost more. Not all areas have this available, but most places can get it now.

The download speeds are almost always faster than upload as your connection is normally used for receiving data (and sending only a little) - so ISPs prioritise this to strike a good balance of the available bandwidth. There's also a secondary issue in that if they had increased upload speeds then people could start hosting services via a cheap connection, which would be very costly to the ISP. There are some fully synchronous data connections available, but they're usually pretty expensive.

 

[anyname]

Thanks again for the reply and also for the explanation of the differing speeds.