In the market for a new router for home network

[dbsoccer]

It appears my Gen3 Airport Extreme has died and needs to be replaced. Before I go further some background is needed.

My cable modem and router were in an upstairs office. Desktop computer plugged into a port on the router and a switch, located in a main level distribution panel, was plugged into another port. Most of the wireless activities in my house happen in a main level family room which is a floor and several rooms away from the router. Signal strength/performance/SN was bad. The family room has one 5e cabled pulled into it from the panel (installed during a remodel). So to fix my problem I moved the router to the family room and replaced it with a switch. So the set up was modem to switch to switch to router. It seemed to work but now the router is dead. Perhaps I killed it with all the switches.

I now understand I should only go modem to router to switch but I'm concern about the signal strength in the family room.

My one daughter has a new Mac Air but aside from that I expect an N router should be fine.

Any recommendations on how I might solve what is a range problem? I understand a $30 router won't fix the problem.

 

[Kursah]

Sounds like you should run an AP or two throughout your house. I'm a big fan of the Ubiquity UniFi AP's ($70), they have excellent range, with the UniFi AP having a 400ft range, and the LR version 600. I'm going to be using one in my house, but my Asus AC66U already does a decent job covering most of the house. Having a dedicated access point means you can leave your router where it needs to be, with the networking hardware. You connect the included with purchase POE (Power Over Ethernet) injector on the way to the AP, which powers it over the Ethernet cable that it gets signal from, makes it a simple and clean install to do. They are very powerful AP's, and for $70 you'll be hard pressed to find better at that price imho.

I'm not a big Mac Air fan, but to each their own. I can't knock them too hard as they do tend to work fairly well and are super easy to setup.

I've had great luck with Asus routers, both on capabilities and range. I run Merlin firmware on mine which added extra capabilities and the router runs better than it ever did on stock AsusWRT. I am in the middle of replacing my Asus AC66U (great consumer grade router, mine is the R version, refurbished) with an Ubiquity EdgeRouter Lite-3, which is an amazing piece of hardware for $99. Can provide enterprise-levels of routing and firewalling, though most of the complex stuff must be done in CLI (command line interface), but the GUI and included Wizards in the GUI work great for basic setups and a little reading and you can figure out most anything.

I suppose it depends on your knowledge and willingness to configure...coming from an Airport, if you like the set it and forget it approach, I'd say get a good consumer router, and an access point. Have both give the same wireless SSID and WPA2 settings/credentials, use the AP where the signal gets weak, place the router with the networking gear so it covers the other end of the house and call it a day. I would say spending $200 here wouldn't be that bad for something that will work well, run smooth and be pretty reliable.

 

[remixedcat]

head on over to my blog at http://remixedcat.blogspot.com for a ton of wireless reviews.

just avoid range extenders since they degrade your original router due to co-channeling as well as halving BW

 

[dbsoccer]

I really appreciate the very quick feedback. I have a person at my work who has a Asus N66U and is very happy with it. He has no "customers" of his network to force the jump to AC. My daughter has a new Apple Macbook AIR which is ac so I opted for the AC66U. I now have one on order.

What I have learned is routers don't live one minute and are dead the next. They seem to slowly fade into the sunset. And they are sensitive to heat. My Airport was 5-10 years old and I had the modem sitting on top of it for most of its life. Both generated some significant heat.

So today I'm smarter. I've got a new modem. I'll install the new Asus directly off of the modem. But I won't stack them (duh!!). And I'll see how things go. If need be I'll add an AP.

Another question, what tool should I use to check my performance. I have learned that the signal to noise ratio is key. I understood there are tools to measure signal strength noise, etc so I could fine tune my router placement. I may be able to put it on top shelf, as an example, and leave it connected directly to the modem.

And is it just me but the SN ratio is not really a ratio but a difference?? Noise less signal should be ~ 40 for things to work well?

 

[Kursah]

AC66U is a good router, mine is solid and for a consumer router great signal and range...I do highly recommend the Merlin firmware (http://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/)...just adds to the stock AsusWRT in good ways, performance, stability, speed and features, uses the same interface so its easy to work with, allows for more fine tuning of your wireless network as well.

Merlin also features a scanner that will scan nearby wireless networks and report what channels they're on (iirc on channel scanning), so you can better tune what channels your wireless networks use.

I set mine up with the stand so it stands vertically, seemed to take it down a couple degrees. Merlin allows you to know the temps of the chipsets running the 2.4 and 5GHz radio systems as well.

I use an app called Wifi Analyzer for Android to test signal range, channel, ssid, etc. Works super well.

If you want to test throughput from WAN to WLAN, then run something like Speedtest.net. WLAN to WLAN, LAN to WLAN, etc you should check out iPerf (https://iperf.fr/). You could copy files from PC-to-PC as well, a lot of review sites do that since it's more of a "real world" test for local networks, and works well between two laptops that use WiFI and LAN because you can mix and test.

I have been told a DB of -40 to -65 is pretty much where you want to be, going too far over -70db will be too weak without a higher gain antennas on either the router or the device.

Hope that helps!

Edit:

Here's the tab, Site Survey

 

[dbsoccer]

Yesterday I received my new router. I didn't have much time to set it up but will be able to spend some time this PM. I'll let you know how it goes and, most importantly, if the range is such it fixes my weak signal issue I had with my old AirPort.
Also, the link above to Merlin doesn't seem to work for me.

 

[Kursah]

Well the link takes you to the site, which you could navigate around from there, for some reason the rest of my sentence got added onto the link...my apologies! Here's the correct link:

http://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/

And here's the actual WRT Firmware download location, just scroll to the bottom to get the most recent one:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/bkfq2a6aebq68/Asuswrt-Merlin#lt9d2blv8a9uh
If you have any questions, let me know. I'll do my best to help you out.

 

[dbsoccer]

Hello Kursah,

Thanks for your help. With the help of an ASUS tech I was able to reset my router and start over with the install. We got is up and going very quickly.
I didn't have time to install Merlin but that is on the list of things to do. I just happy I, once again, have WiFi in the house.

Question, when setting up the router we configured a 2.4Ghertz and a 5Ghertz. And when linking a WIFI device (iPad) to the WiFi I see I have both a 2.4 and 5 available. I left confused as to which on to use.

Again, it is good to have WiFi. My WiFi speed test seemed to be fine. I will get Merlin installed and most likely come back with more questions.

Thanks.

 

[dbsoccer]

A question about access points. (Until you mentioned them above I had never heard of them before.) From a quick investigation I see these are hardwired devices which are wired to a router port. My question is can an AP have a switch in line. Put another way can I my network be wired modem to router to switch to switch to AP?

Right now I have modem to router. These two boxes are in my upstairs office. A panel where all the comm lines merge is downstairs. I currently have line from the router to switch near the panel and have several 5e lines plugged into this switch. These lines go to bedrooms and the family room. In the family room my surround sound receiver is connected to the network so I can do things like NetFlix, etc. I'd like to put a switch on the family room line so I can provide the Netflix link as well as provide a hard wire port for other needs. I am wondering if I can put an AP on this family room switch as well.

 

[Kursah]

Hello Kursah,

Thanks for your help. With the help of an ASUS tech I was able to reset my router and start over with the install. We got is up and going very quickly.
I didn't have time to install Merlin but that is on the list of things to do. I just happy I, once again, have WiFi in the house.

Question, when setting up the router we configured a 2.4Ghertz and a 5Ghertz. And when linking a WIFI device (iPad) to the WiFi I see I have both a 2.4 and 5 available. I left confused as to which on to use.

Again, it is good to have WiFi. My WiFi speed test seemed to be fine. I will get Merlin installed and most likely come back with more questions.

Thanks.

These routers aren't too shabby to work with and reset when you flub up, a decent consumer router overall IMO.

You can setup the 2.4 and 5.0 networks as the same SSID or different (SSID is the wireless network ID). If they're setup the same, then when a device is in range of the 5GHz network they'll reconnect to that for higher bandwidth, and when they're further away where 5GHz fades and 2.4 is still strong, they'll stay connected to the 2.4. Or you can do separate network SSIDs, so you can choose which device connects to what.

These routers also allow for 6 more wireless SSID network setups to be configured as well, so if you wanted a hidden SSID dedicated to just your, or specific devices you could do that. To keep things simple, I would say unless you feel you want to control what signal range each device is on, just make both 2.4 and 5.0 the same SSID and settings. Keeps it simple and lets the device and router decide which goes on what.

2.4 GHz can handle less bandwidth but has a further range. 5GHz can handle more bandwidth, but does not have the range or penetration abilities 2.4GHz does. Is it really noticeable on wifi? Not necessarily...that really depends on the rest of your network which is a different discussion for another day.

A question about access points. (Until you mentioned them above I had never heard of them before.) From a quick investigation I see these are hardwired devices which are wired to a router port. My question is can an AP have a switch in line. Put another way can I my network be wired modem to router to switch to switch to AP?

Right now I have modem to router. These two boxes are in my upstairs office. A panel where all the comm lines merge is downstairs. I currently have line from the router to switch near the panel and have several 5e lines plugged into this switch. These lines go to bedrooms and the family room. In the family room my surround sound receiver is connected to the network so I can do things like NetFlix, etc. I'd like to put a switch on the family room line so I can provide the Netflix link as well as provide a hard wire port for other needs. I am wondering if I can put an AP on this family room switch as well.

Yes you absolutely can.

Modem > Router > Switch (if you need) > AP is totally fine.

An AP like the Ubiquty UniFI (around $70) has excellent range, and uses what is called a POE (Power Over Ethernet) injector to run power and signal to the AP using the single Ethernet wire instead of a power adapter at the AP, allows you to mount the AP in better locations. So that would be Modem > Router > Switch > POE Injector > AP

Sounds more complicated than it really is...makes installation easier overall.

The 4 ports on the Asus router is just a 4-port switch all sharing the same interface, which is your primary ethernet LAN interface. I usually prefer to put the main network connection on the LAST switch port, that's how I ID them in the field and at home, keeps it simple. Then I start with the first switch port when connecting network devices such as other workstations, AP's, switches, etc.

Hope that helps!

 

[dbsoccer]

Perfect!! Thanks. The ASUS tech had me created different SSID for 2.4 and 5, as you already know. I can go back in and change them to the same. And if I add a AP in the family room I should be set. Even my oldest daughter with her new Apple lap top should be happy. And that is an accomplishment.