Yes, it is a potential renegade device on your network, similar to IoT devices or a computer of unknown origin. Modern SoCs are computationally capable, cheap, and would easily fit inside a commodity consumer switch.
I stick to well known name brands. And in any case, it remains critical to robustly secure all your devices even if they are on your “secure” LAN.
Generally the most you can expect from WiFi is about 500 mbit. Distance, radio interference, radio regulations, and client WiFi limitations lead us there.
Sure, you can get higher speeds in the same room, or with a very capable (rare) WiFi client, or if you live in a rural area without any competitive radios.
But otherwise, don’t set your sights as high as the marketing garbage on the WiFi router’s box, because it is not going to happen.
How big is your place, and how many people live there? That way someone can help you select the right router for the environment.
Can you reach your service from another machine on your internal LAN? Are you confident that your ISP isn’t blocking via rule or NAT? What port number(s) are you trying to use?
I’ve had fine reliability with the Deco X10. Cannot speak to the others.
Yes. Maybe turn off/disable the WiFi radio on your older modem so that the new router isn’t impacted by the radio noise from the old modem.
If there is a radio spectrum issue or a deeper down networking issue, replacing the gear may not solve the problem. So I’d try to isolate the current setup’s issue before blindly replacing it.
A wired backhaul is always going to provide better performance, reliability, and consistency… as well as the lowest latency. Wireless backhaul is going to be more problematic in a radio-heavy area, or if your building has a lot of dense materials. But otherwise a wireless backhaul may be perfectly suitable for your needs.
Four nodes can be a lot. The most nodes I have installed is three, in homes that are about 4500 sq ft. These are in modern North American “wood & drywall” homes, and I was able to position the nodes well, so your situation may demand something else. Generally I want to use as few nodes as I can, because there is a system performance overhead for each node.
6 GHz is great if you have a lot of 6E gear, but it is worse than 5 GHz in terms of traversing walls and materials. So if you have an open floorplan it’s a good option, but otherwise I’d save my money. I only have one 6e kit installed in a home, and there has been at most one client I’ve seen connected to 6 GHz. The backhaul prefers 5 GHz.
You have a couple options. The easiest is to buy an adjustable power adapter. They’re about $20 on Amazon. They come with a bunch of “barrel tips” so it is very likely you’ll have one that matches. I have one of these adjustables to test and validate devices when the power adapter is missing or suspect. Pretty handy.
Otherwise, you need to know the voltage, polarity, minimum amperage, and jack size. The first three are easy because they are almost always declared on the old brick or the device itself. You don’t have to match the amperage, but the new adapter needs to supply at least the amperage of the original. For example, if your old supply was 1000 mA, a 1.5 Amp supply is fine but a 500 mA supply will not provide adequate power.
The physical jacks: you get to learn what they are through experience. The most popular are 2.1mm in diameter and 5.5 mm in length, with 2.5 mm diameter being the 2nd most popular. But there are many others. Sometimes if you look for a replacement adapter for your device the specs will actually say. Otherwise you’ll need to measure your old one.
The vast majority of Mesh kits limit configurability. That’s because the vast majority of consumers buy this equipment for ease of installation and ease of management. VLAN management or customized radio settings are essentially counter to the concept of the consumer mesh product category.
You’re only talking 120sqm, so it might make sense to centralize your WiFi and have a couple cables to strategically positioned access points. That way you get both top performance and full configurability.
Anything on the Comcast certified list will do. I got a refurb Arris 6190 and get 400 out of it. No problem, reliable and low latency. It isn’t going to be supported forever, but nor will any modem. I paid about $35, easy to provision with the (very mediocre) Comcast app.
Maybe. You’ll need to check to see if the cabling is set up for Ethernet or Telephone. Most houses have it set up for telephone. A tester can help validate the Cat wiring situation.
“MoCA” allows you to repurpose legacy coax tv cabling for computer networking.
Big streaming services use distributed servers. They likely have a copy of their streaming services in each city or even in your local ISP’s data center. This saves everyone significant bandwidth costs. A few hundred TB of storage for their most demanded content is cheap money.
To be clear, a switch will not give you these things.
If your home router is “dropping bands”, it is likely that the power adapter has weakened and can no longer deliver enough amps to the device to keep the radios operating properly, or not enough power to keep the CPU from losing bits and crashing (LEDs on, but not reliably functional).
I’d replace the power adapter with one that can deliver more amps. These adapters have to deal with every power transient and are often powered up for years. And they are often mediocre.
With that I’d go with something like the Deco X20. They are affordable and support wired backhaul. They are easy to install and are very hands off. It is easy to add more nodes.
Only two radios within each unit, but you won’t have the mesh wireless backhaul “using up” the 3rd radio.
How big is your house, what is it made of, how fast is your service, how many users in the house?
Are you an advanced user, or set-and-forget type?
It is impossible to know if this is Ethernet via the photos. “RJ45” style jacks are used for numerous applications.