How many devices can I connect to AT&T fiber router?

Posted on: 07 Aug 2024

AT&T fiber presents high-speed internet services that provide internet connectivity directly in your home through a fiber-optic cable. This kind of attachment offers a very high data transfer rate, small amount of delay, and the capacity to accommodate many devices without reduction in performance. But how many connected devices is it possible to have if you use an AT&T fiber router? Let’s take a look at each of these aspects more closely.

Supportable Devices

All types of AT&T fiber routers offered by AT&T with their internet services can support up to 64 wirless connectable devices and have wired Ethernet ports integrated into the router. This includes personal computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones, home security systems and smart speakers or displays, smart TVs and streaming devices, gaming consoles, and so on.

Therefore, a maximum of 64 WiFi and wired connections combined, could be active simultaneously. The router in a way monitors and enables every connected device and network to have access to the router and internet.

Wired vs Wireless Connections

Out of the potential of 64 connections, most of the AT&T fiber routers deliver 4 Ethernet ports at the back of the gadget. This lets you to physically plug in four devices using a cable for Ethernet which is faster and more dependable compared to Wi-Fi. Hardware like desktop ‘proper’ PCs, smart TVs, streamers, DVRs, and gaming consoles are the products that benefit most from a wired solution.

The rest of the devices would be wired through the WiFi network being broadcasted by the AT&T fiber router. Modems of today have a WiFi standard that is capable of high speed and multiple connection such as 802.11ac. While wired will always be faster, Wifi is more than sufficient for most general usages such as web browsing, streaming, social media, and other internet related activities.

Typical Home Usage

Although, technically, you can wire up to 64 devices to an AT&T fiber router, few households are going to have 64 actively connected devices at a time. AT&T also points out that the number of Wi-Fi connected devices in a home has risen to between five and eight devices.

It may be nice to have smart home security cameras, smart lights, and all the other connected gadgets you can think of, but in the real world, at any given time throughout the day, you realistically don’t need more than 15-20 active connections. For example, the New York Public Library was designed to accommodate about 30 devices per household member as a precautionary measure.

Thus, if a family of four has 4 household members, then they can have 120 devices connected to the WiFi network even if only a small percentage of them are used at some time. A fiber router from AT&T is fast and has high bandwidth to accommodate several users even at night when everyone is online.

What Slows Down Connections

That said, despite the fact that the AT&T fiber routers themselves are quite capable of easily managing well over a dozen, if not more, simultaneous connections, it does not necessarily mean you will never again experience slow Internet speeds. Some of the problems that affect your Internet speeds include poor signals from the WiFi, nearby networks interference, old age of the network equipment, and line issues.

If the wireless router appears to be adequate and you find that the internet slows down when many devices are connected and online, then the bandwidth to the home itself may need to be upgraded. Larger speed offerings when marketed through the AT&T fiber bring with them additional overall bandwidth which can enable more devices to saturate connections at one time.

The best solution to reduce connectivity speed problems within a household is to opt for the highest possible download and upload speeds that are offered within your locality as it reduces the chances of a network lag when many members in a house are browsing, streaming, gaming, video conferencing etc , all through different devices connected to the home internet.

Getting Even More Connections

However, to provide even more connections, there are few ways to expand the network of a Linksys E2500 router: Although, sometimes, even 64 wired and wireless connections may not be sufficient. The addition of wireless range extenders or mesh WiFi systems can expand the overall coverage area of the wireless signals as well as enable more WiFi clients to connect.

However, you can also add a network switch to increase the number of wired connections available. Plug the switch to your AT&T router using an Ethernet cable then run cables from the switch to other devices in your house without having the disadvantage of having limited ports in the router.

For instance, connecting a 24 port Ethernet switch to your router. This would give a total of 28 wired ports with 4 port on the router and the newly incorporated 24 port switch for directly connecting devices via wired Ethernet cables.

Managing Lots of Connections

However, once you begin having tens and tens, if not hundreds, of connected devices in your home network, it can get a little complicated. This can be possible by checking your router admin interface where you get to see all the connected clients.

But scrolling through pages and pages of devices becomes less fun. Network mapping tools such as Fing allow you to create a map of everything that is currently connected to the network and thus makes documentation easier and more efficient.

Fiber routers can handle the load Fiber routers are well equipped to handle the load that is put through them every day by the residents of the household as well as their devices, and this is proved by the following reasons:

Therefore, the notion about the number of connections they can support should not be a worry for most households. The routers used in a fiber connection like the one provided by AT&T can comfortably support wired and wireless devices in the tens and tens of dozens. I’m sure most of the houses don’t even require more than 20-30 connection at any one time before other factors come into play.

But it is comforting to know that there is capacity for the large number of people or clever homes with many appliances. AT&T fiber offers fast broadband connection as the basic foundation and the advanced equipment to ensure everyone has excellent connectivity. Unless your business network comprises of hundreds of nodes, the bundled router should suffice for all your needs.