Keep it simple

The Picard Maneuver

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Does this ridiculous number of antennas even do anything or is it just marketing wank?

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I'm seriously thinking of getting a usbC-ethernet dongle for my mobile, for when I'm at my desk.

The Pantser

If you have wireless charging then you should definitely get the dongle. I have one for those times I need stability. Get a thin lightweight USB C extender so the dongle is not getting in the way.

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Technically, it does provide better connection speeds by enabling the router to avoid channel hopping, so it can talk to multiple devices (or the same devices if it has multiple antennae) at the same time. This is part of the recent wifi6 and wifi7 standards so more and more devices will start to gain speeds using this technique

Realistically computers have at best 2 antennae and this is largely marketing wank.

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It does. Wifi uses MIMO (Multi-in, multi-out) to run multiple concurrent data streams over the same channel width, which overcomes individual channel bandwidth limitations (there's only so much radio frequency space to go around). Each stream having its own antenna, and having larger antennas, gives stronger signal/noise ratios, less retransmitted packets, and overall better connections.

A lot of those high end "gaming" routers are often oversold though.... MIMO improves throughput if you have an Internet link it can saturate; realistically even a midrange 2x2 802.11AC router will provide more wifi bandwidth than your internet does. And for gaming, they do nothing to improve latency no matter how many streams you run, as wifi's inherent delay (5-15ms) is pretty much a fixed quantity due to its radio broadcast time-sharing nature. The meme is correct. A $6 ethernet cable beats any and all wifi routers and client adapters, and always will.

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Can you not charge and use a single USB-C port at the same time?

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What fast of a WAN connection are you talking about?

I can't see how a midrange 802.11AC AP could suffice for a decent WAN connection. IMO you need at least 802.11ax

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Yes you can. You just need a dock instead.

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My PC, laptop, work laptop, are all wired using gigabit. But my laptop on wifi reach 1200Mbps so it's faster than cable!

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tell that to the $800 of copper running through my walls.

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Same lol. I get 800Mbps on Cat6, but 1100 on Wifi 6 with one of these fancy expensive 11000ax gaming routers that has all those antennas (antennae?).

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2x2 AC on 5ghz has an 867mbps max PHY throughput, which after a 50% derate for signal quality and overhead is still a very comfortable 400mbps.... typical cable internet is around 100 to 500mbps with a lot of places offering "1gbps" that it never actually reaches, so it's certainly sufficient for 90% of people.

If you have a very heavy multi user (6+ devices always on) household you may find some benefit from an AX 2x2 or 3x3 router just because it can handle congestion better.

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Unless you need 6ft of cable or you just run wires on the floor it's more like $200 of plenium rated cable, and keystone jacks and the labor involved with the run.

My house with a half finished basement (easy access) took probably 16-20 hours running to 5 rooms.

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Lookup "phased array" and "beam forming"

MudMan

Six plus always-on devices is rookie numbers. I'm in the twenties, in a house with a handful of people.

And yes, the router I'm currently using is faster than all my wired devices over wifi, save for the two that pair some form of 2.5/10Gb ports. Also yes, my 1Gbps WAN hits about 900-ish on the downstream, with the ISP guaranteeing at least 800 as a legal requirement. I don't know if other regions allow ISPs to sell connections that run at 50% of the advertised speed, but... yeah, no, that's illegal here.

Honestly, full home coverage is the biggest issue I have. If this was a new house I would have wired it as a solution, but as it is, I only got the whole home fully connected with reliable speeds by spending a bunch of money in wireless networking gear.

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Yeah when i did my house i was quoted $100-200 a drop and that was years ago. I bought materials for 20 drops for about 1k (cables, keystones, plates, cable tester, ethernet cutter, puncher, drywall knife, flex drill bit, wall fishing tape, network switch, and a bunch of other stuff im probably forgetting). It took me 1 hour per drop on average. Some were easy, some were a pain in the ass. Now you can save on materials slightly by doing 1 drop per room whereas i did individual drops for each jack (because i wanted full bandwidth on each line), but either way it is going to end up more costly than an access point or mesh system unless you're just running one line within the same room.

Definitely worth it if you care about the speed or reliability of your connection but i think for most people these days it's probably overkill.

If you do go wiring everything then now you're mostly already set up to do some Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) devices for cameras, access points etc. And next thing you know you're an amateur home networker!

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Hay $800 worth of copper, I found a 1000ft roll of shielded pure copper for $2.11 because someone misplaced the decimal point I know because it was listed for $2.1199 every thing was automated through amazon so they just shipped free shipping to, thank for listening $800 worth of copper, your the best.

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I mean I just have more than one port and can charge using the dedicated charging port.

What laptop are you using that makes it such an affair to use two USB-C ports?

Edit: I missed the “mobile” part

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If I'm reading the thread correctly, they're referring to a mobile phone which only has 1 USB port typically