It’s the $1,000 question: Should you buy your own router or rent it from your internet service provider?
Most ISPs tack on between $10 and $15 each month for equipment, while you can generally get a modem and router for under $200. Purchasing your own internet equipment usually pays for itself in the first year, but it often comes with some additional headaches.
I’ve been writing about the internet for six years, and for all six of them, I’ve carried around a shameful secret: I’ve been renting my router from Xfinity the whole time. I know — this is like a painter renting their brushes every month. But my rented equipment has worked fine the whole time, even if I’ve known all along that I’ve been paying a premium for the convenience of an ISP-provided setup.
All this time, I’ve been paying $10 to $15 extra for the privilege of using Xfinity’s modem and router gateway device. (Xfinity seems to increase the price of equipment a dollar or two every year.) That’s mostly been fine with me — my internet bill is reasonable, and I’ve been fine paying a little extra for the convenience. But after combing through my old bills, I arrived at a number that prompted me to reconsider: $873. That’s how much I’ve spent on Xfinity’s equipment fees over the years.
With the money I’ve spent renting Xfinity equipment, I could have bought the most advanced router CNET’s ever tested and then bought another one as a backup. I could have doubled the internet speed I was getting. I could have booked a flight to Oslo.
As satisfied as I’ve been with my service, owning your own equipment is almost always the better option. You’ll often get better performance — my upload speeds increased by more than 2,000% — and it will usually pay for itself within the first year or two.
You might be perfectly content to pay a bit extra for the convenience of not having to buy and set up your own equipment. But if you’re looking to save money in the long run, and are comfortable buying and managing your own equipment, it’s a far better deal to buy your own router and modem.
Here’s what I’ve learned about making the switch from rented equipment to my own and how you can make a similar change as painless as possible.
How to choose the right modem and router
The best internet is the internet you never notice, and I can’t remember the last time my connection went out or I saw a buffering wheel in my home. And this is all with a device from 2017 that Xfinity describes as an “old Wireless Gateway with limited speeds and functionality.”
This just goes to show how much the type of internet user you are has to do with what kind of equipment you need. I live in a 750-square-foot apartment, and my internet needs are mostly limited to video calls and TV streaming. If you live in a larger home with multiple floors, the same router likely won’t cut it. Similarly, activities like online gaming hinge on split-second reactions. If this type of instantaneous responsiveness is important to you, it’s probably worth investing in a gaming router that minimizes lag.
Wi-Fi routers run the gamut from entry-level models like the TP-Link AC1200 for $30 to ultra-advanced mesh systems like the Netgear Orbi 970 Series for over $1,700. To test each Wi-Fi router, CNET runs three speed tests in five different rooms in our testing facility, logging results for download speed, upload speed and latency. That process is repeated six times, accounting for variations in network performance at different times of the day.