Should I upgrade my wireless router?

I dont know why you would need N unless you do large file transfers and are in a rush always. Otherwise I dont see any point in upgrading. I use a wrt-54gl with tomato and I love it. Tried going to N and it was a terrible experience.

You will definitely benefit getting a wireless N router which can handle 6 times the traffic the WRT-54G can handle. However going from wired to wireless you will see a decrease in ping and jitter.

I surf the internet on my laptop all the time with G and dont have any issues what benefit could he possibly see from it? It seems a huge waste of money to me for 0 benefit for what he needs.

*edit*

wait a second handle 6 times the traffic? What are you even saying here? The only difference would be how fast his connection is between the computer and the router it has nothing to do with how much traffic the router can handle. They can both handle as much traffic and real world speeds are completely different than what the specs say.

Depending on the distance between his PC and router he may need something with a stronger signal, Wireless N will future proof his network for the next 5 years. Many websites now days are very animated and do take a little horse power to load and will only increase over time.

Just because you had a bad experience with wireless N does not mean everyone else will.

I say ftp a file over G to see what your real world performance is like.

I'm betting you'll get a tenth of G's max speeds. Probably lower than that, even.

also, remember N runs over two frequencies - 2.4ghz and 5ghz.

The real N benefits come with 5ghz but many devices only support 2.4.

And you can't simultaneously run N over 2.4 and 5. You can only run 802.11a and n over 5 concurrently.

I would take the wait and see approach. Set up your current router and see if the performance works for what your doing. In my experience the range of the N routers has been overblown. The I have been disappointed in the range of all my N routers except for my original pre draft N router.

My G router had much better signal and range than the N one I had briefly.

Just because its broadcasting in 2 channels doesnt mean its sending out a stronger or better signal. It simply means you can receive the signal in 2 channels. Now if one were more blocked than say the other then maybe that could help. Also most homes dont have range issues with routers to begin with.

I don't really know much about that model router you have but I'd think it's like at least current models that know to have strong radios could give you better range. With only a 10Mb internet connection N probably won't give you any benefit if you have a good signal on G. N does have the option of 5ghz which can be helpfull if you have a lot of 2.4ghz traffic in your area (neighbors wifi's, cell phone, microwaves, cordless phones, etc) but range isn't as far for 5ghz as it is for 2.4ghz. On my 35/35 FIOS connection that actually runs at over 40mbps in the real world G could match the speed from the next room (about 25').

Seeing if what you have works good enough first would be your best bet unless money's not an issue. If your internet speed ever goes up you'd you'd need to get a new router to take advantage of that as your old one probably only has a 10Mb WAN port but some of the new ones have gigabit WAN ports (I've never noticed any 100Mb WAN ports but that doesn't mean they don't exist).