Router for a 100Mbps Internet connection

Question

I'm about to sign up for an ISP that offers 100 Mbps down / 50 Mbps up via an ethernet jack. I have an airport extreme. The ISP warned me that many routers aren't able to handle 100 Mbps of Internet traffic. Are routers rated for maximum Internet speeds, or is there some way to test it out in advance?

Edit: I think I may have been misunderstood. There's no cable modem. My whole building is being wired up for Internet via mysterious fiber connections or something, and it ends with a 100Mbps ethernet jack in my unit. My question is whether I can get the fastest speed possible if I hook an Airport Extreme into that jack and connect a few computers to it.

Answer 1

A router with a 10/100 WAN port will never see 100Mbps. It may get close, but the 100Mbps is the limit. If you want to make sure your router isn't slowing you down I would get a 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) router. I like the DIR-825 (version B1 if you want to run DD-WRT). The story will be the same with your modem. Check which modem your ISP recommends. I can already tell you that the modems they will recommend will all be DOCSIS 3 because you couldn't get 100Mbps on a single DOCSIS 1 or 2 modem.

In summary get a router with a Gigabit WAN port and a DOCSIS 3 modem if you want to get the max out of your new connection.