Worth changing router?

[philipjulie]

Hi, I was on BT full fibre 100 and just changed to full fibre 900. I have been using my old  TP Link Archer VR600eu V2 modem router with the router ethernet cable to the white box on the wall. It works well and on the full fibre 100 I was getting 150 WiFi on speed test.

Reason I'm thinking of changing router is that the last tp link firmware update was March 2020 so thinking I might be missing out of some new improvements and security features of newer routers. We have a few smart TVs, tablets and phones using WiFi with nothing ethernet cabled into router. We don't have any Xbox or gaming pc. Based on this is it worth upgrading the router? Is it worth future proofing and getting WiFi 6 router? Budget £200 I guess.

Many thanks

[jac_95]

It would seem that router already has WiFi rated at 1733 Mbps on 5 GHz band and 300 Mbps on 2.4 GHz band and is compatible with TP-Link's OneMesh.

So unless you have devices that are compatible with WiFi6 then there's not much point in upgrading at present.

[philipjulie]

Thank you. Would the lack of recent firmware updates concern you or is that nothing to really be worried about if the router itself seems to work well?

[jac_95]

Unless there's a know vulnerability in that router but make sure the admin management page, SSH/FTP/SFTP/remote access is all securely protected with a strong password or disabled.

Also to note I just realized you are on v2 but a V3 of the same router is available with some higher specs (TP link love creating multiple versions of the same model number)

[NigelB72]

We're running the standard SmartHub 2 with 120mbps in a 3 bed detached with TV's PlayStations, phones, tablets, Switch, Laptop & a couple of Rokus all running off it with zero issues..... Our broadband gets a serious work out with zero issues from the Smarthub...  If it works, don't fix it and don't believe the Spammy excuse for news sites telling you it's redundant unless you have a very specific need that it doesn't do..

[Crimliar]

The VR 600 V2 is an AC1600 device with 1300Mbps on 5GHz and 300Mbps on 2.4GHz.

The lack of support means that it could at some point become insecure.

As for "is it enough of a router for my needs", the answer would have to be that until you see issues then probably.  It is an old (but pretty competent) design but in a demanding environment it might not be quite enough to share out your 900Mbps fibre properly to all your devices with a wired switch that is just able to cope with your download speed (pretty common), but also no a great deal of overhead on the WiFi.