13 years ago I got a Lenovo T430 ThinkPad to use for college. Over the years I’ve upgraded, replaced, and modded many parts of the laptop. At this point my friends joke it’s the “Laptop of Theseus”.

Thanks to the upgrades it’s still a pretty capable machine even running the most up-to-date Debian and Firefox on modern websites like YouTube. I use this machine for programming or any tasks that require a Linux OS as my other laptop is a MacBook.

Last year I was lucky enough to get access to 10 Gb/s home internet for $40/month. Ironically my ISP can not provide me with a router capable of handling more than 1 Gb/s. For $40/month that’s acceptable - I’m paying less than most people do for Gigabit anyway. But I wanted to experience the full power of 10 Gb/s.

Looking around it’s clear there isn’t much consumer networking hardware built for 10 Gb/s. Many of the routers advertised as 10 Gb/s only have 2.5 Gb/s WAN ports combined with WiFi 6E. So from your WiFi 6E capable device to the router there is a theoretical best case bandwidth of 10.8 Gb/s. But from your router to the internet you’ve got a pipe less than a quarter that size.