Why do I have two streams on my internet connection?

When you set up your internet service for the first time you might see two streaming options (example: “ARRIS – 2E4A” and “ARRIS-2E4A-5G”). One option has an extra “5G” at the end of the name.

The reason there is more than one stream to your home wireless network is because it lets you have a better internet experience. Two streams allow you to more evenly spread out your household bandwidth.

If you have multiple internet using devices (cellphone, laptop, TV box, etc.) you can spread them out between the two different streams. By spreading out your devices over multiple streams you are less likely to congest your network and experience slower speeds for each device.

Think of it like lanes of traffic. One-hundred cars going down a 2 lane road is better than 100 cards going down a one lane road. In this example the cars represent your internet activities like streaming Netflix, playing Xbox and browsing social media on your smartphone and the lanes represent the streams that make up your Wi-Fi___33 network. To learn more about what effects the internet speed on your internet using devices, click here.