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.

Lord Sauron would like a word.

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.

I'm a network professional with a specialty in wireless.

Yeah, beam forming and mimo are the main reasons for antenna diversity. There's also more radio chains in those units typically, and more radio chains can provide better speeds if you have client devices that can take advantage of the extra radio chains (both sides need to have the same, increased number of radio chains to see an increase).

The antennas are fairly small/thin pieces of wire that are not very long, so the antennas don't need to look like that, but the quantity is useful.

I believe it's for beam forming which can be used to improve signal strength in a specific direction.

Faster than gigabit, but not 2.5 gigabit. Your cables likely support the speed, just your ports and switching hardware are capped at gigabit.

It's not extremely expensive, but unless you move around a lot of big files, you're probably getting very diminished returns, even spending less than twice as much for 2.5x speeds.

Impressive, I lose half my speed with the router around the corner.

If you have only one device on Wi-Fi, multiplexing turned off, or especially if you have MU-MIMO support, Wi-Fi can be faster than a single wired connection. It is still higher latency and subject to other drawbacks such as security and power consumption, but of course it offers advantages that can outweigh the disadvantages depending on use case and user needs.

That said, it's technically not faster than the cable, but rather faster at the data link or network layer. For example, CAT8 physically supports up to 40Gbps, but most consumer and even professional electronics only support up to 2.5Gbps. Only really enterprise level switches can push up to like 100Gbps onto copper, and even then that's using QSFP transceivers, not RJ-45 connections. Fiber cables regularly push 400Gbps.

And the contractor to do it all.

Why wouldn’t you do it yourself?

And then you still need a wireless router to get Internet on your phone unless you use data at home like a crazy person.

A pain in the arse you only need to do once, and you can hire someone to do it for you for basically the same cost as a couple of the high end wireless routers, so in like 5 years, you break even.

Also, how much have you spent on your computer (s), phone(s), tablet(s), and all your other internet connected devices, and you won't spend like $500 on something that can run all that stuff simultaneously? Pouring literally thousands of dollars on connected devices, but most won't pay more than they would for a toaster, to get them on the internet, then pay out the wahzoo for gigabit internet that your crummy d-link router can't handle, and you wonder why all your fancy gadgets run like shit.... It's a lot like buying a Ferrari to drive on dirt/gravel roads.

I’m a nice fellow who provides free internet to all of my neighbors.

It’s a pain sometimes.

I worry about the teenager upstairs, but all the others are old ladies and it doesn’t bother me a bit…until I want to do something serious.

I’m about to (tax time) invest in a router that allows me to control their bandwidth. It’s free, so if 20mbps don’t work for them they can pay for it.

I will open up the kid’s PS5 so he can game. His laptop is getting 10mbps though.

Old ladies rocking 4k to sleep is too much.

They don’t pay for internet so they get the good good on their services. I’m too sorry and antisocial to go deal with it.

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!

Your PC probably has poor antennas and/or WiFi chipset. The pc might also be located in a worse place