Currently have the Preferred service using a arris Surfboard 3.0 (SB6190). With both kids back at home and 18 or so devices connected (3 wired, 5 via 2.4G & 10 via 5G) - would upgrading modem to a SB8200 (3.1) be beneficial? Or wait till I upgrade the service to Ultimate or gigablast? Our router is a Orbi ac3000 triband - RBR50 - the main and a satellite. Issue is that great getting 165 mpbs on speed, but a significant drop when someone streaming a movie. Thx.
You subscribe to the Preferred 150 data plan and get 165 Mbps? There's nothing wrong with your SB6190 D3 modem.
18 devices isn't a lot but each device is still competing for router time. Even if a device is idle, it's still taking a slice of time. I'd try to limit the number of IP addresses your router will issue or lower the priority (QoS) of potential streaming devices. Whoever is streaming isn't being considerate of other users.
Networking is give and take which is what Bruce is saying about slice of time, but if someone is streaming a movie it shouldn't affect everyone else that much. Now downloading is a different story since this is going as fast as it can until finished.
If your router doesn't support QOS there are devices you could add which can control bandwidth per device, personally I use MikroTik but there are many others.
Which Mikro tik product are you referring to? There web site has many choices.
I use the hAP AC2 but I wasn't suggesting that's what you go with, if you aren't savvy with networking you will likely want to find something else as RouterOS is not easy to manage.
Maybe someone else can suggest something friendlier.
This is a RouterOS simulator, if you think you can manage it MikroTik may be for you since they all run this same interface:
The Queues section is QOS, but there are several ways to do it..kid control, rate limiting in DHCP settings, etc.
