Is it really reasonable to expect users to buy a new router every 2-3 years? 50mbps 802.11g is still plenty sufficient for casual web browsing and streaming, especially considering the fact that most people still don't even have internet connections which are that fast.
My $20 TP-Link router that I bought around 2010 or 2011 is still quite healthy and providing more than sufficient service to my parents' house and is only now starting to fall behind their connection speed (their connection recently got bumped up to 100/5, after being 30/3 for close to a decade)
If you're still running 802.11g, please make damn sure you've turned down the transmit power as much as possible. It's a big waste of airtime compared to 802.11n, so please do everything you can to make sure your low-speed broadcasts aren't getting in the way of other wireless networks that have to share the 2.4GHz band with you.
How is the security patch situation with that router, though? One reason a router upgrade is necessary so soon is just that the manufacturer abandoned it that soon. And then you're part of a botnet before you know it.
The latest Airport Extreme was released June 2013 and the most recent firmware update for it was Dec 20 2016. That's a longer lifespan than most consumer routers, and I expect the Airport will continue getting firmware updates for quite a while.
Sure. shrug It just feels like it would have been relatively trivial to carry over the management code for the older devices into the new application. The Airport Express was my favorite traveling companion back when wifi was harder to come by, and you'd better believe 802.11g is fast enough for most hotel internet connections :)
