How old is your router? It has lived in one part of your home, slowly gathering dust since it was first installed when your family fought to stay connected to the Internet when someone needed to make a phone call. If so, definitely consider upgrading your router. For the rest of us, this question will not be so easy to answer.

Our routers can do a lot, and it is kind of amazing that they are adapting to the new demands we put on them as we make more video calls, stream 4K movies, and connect more devices than ever to our home network. While some older routers may not be able to bear the weight of it, many routers may be to blame for failures elsewhere.

A quick look around online for Internet service and you may find providers offering from 15 Mbps to 150 Mbps and, if you are lucky, up to 1,000 Mbps (or "gigabit" Internet). To put this in perspective, a 150 Mbps connection is not slow by any means, and is tolerable even for a household with multiple users streaming HD content or gaming frequently.

Now, if 150 Mbps is good, what kind of router is needed to take full advantage of that broadband connection? In fact, even a fairly modest, dated router will do the job.

Wi-Fi 4 (also known as 802.11n) has been around for more than a decade. Even so, it can provide connection speeds of up to 150 Mbps in the 5 GHz band. Some specific routers can even deliver multiple streams to provide that speed to multiple devices. If both the router and the connected devices support multiple streams, a single device can achieve up to 450 Mbps.

I guess that's the end of the story: even a 10-year-old router can easily take full advantage of a respectable Internet connection. That's true, but it's not the whole picture.

For one thing, some people will have even faster Internet connections, thanks to fiber and gigabit services. And the speeds that Wi-Fi 4 can achieve are theoretical maximums under ideal conditions; it is unlikely to achieve that kind of performance in the real world.

So there are still some strong cases where a Wi-Fi router should be upgraded.

Older routers may be able to support theoretical speeds that can maximize your broadband connection, but may not provide a connection powerful enough to deliver that speed in reality. Upgrading to a more powerful router or a mesh solution such as the Eero Pro 6 can deliver a stronger signal to the device, allowing for faster speeds.

If there are many devices in the home that connect to an older router, the response to each device's request can be slow. In other words, despite the bandwidth available, the devices may be kept waiting. In this case, a new router that supports multi-band (dual-band or tri-band), more data streams (2x2, 3x3, 4x4, etc.), and faster processors can help.

Finally, if you have gigabit Internet but are using an older router, it may be time to upgrade. Many Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) routers can do the job, depending on the devices you connect. The maximum speed for a single device supporting a single data stream is 433 Mbps, but if you need to support multiple devices at the same time or have devices supporting multiple streams, you don't have to worry about running out of gigabit bandwidth.

The latest standard, Wi-Fi 6, takes it a step further: expect speeds of 1,200 Mbps for a single data stream (or 4,800 Mbps for a 4x4 connection), allowing a single device to take full advantage of gigabit Internet.

In conclusion, double-check the speeds your Internet service provider is supposed to provide; in the 150-300 Mbps range, an older Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n router) can meet your bandwidth needs, but upgrading upgrade will provide better coverage and a more stable signal. If faster Internet, say gigabit speeds, are needed, a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) router can support multiple devices. And a Wi-Fi 6 router allows individual devices to take full advantage of the Internet connection.