100mbps router

[Eric1987]

So I am upgrading to a 100mbps connection and I want a good router for around 100$. What do you guys suggest? I was looking at this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833704177

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127496

 

[s44]

Pretty much any current router will handle the LAN/WAN side of 100mbps. The question depends more on your home setup: large/small space? wired connections? devices with AC? lots of neighbors with interfering networks?

 

[smitbret]

I have the TP-Link Archer C7 v1. It has/had some issues with 5GHz connections and staying connected to Apple devices because of the Atheros chipset it uses. I like mine, though, I don't have any Apple devices. Great range and the great the interface has a lot of features. It can be a little more confusing for customers that are used to consumer level interfaces from brands like NetGear or Belkin.

If you take a run through the TP-Link forums. The v2 came out this spring and seems to have fixed all of the problems. In fact, TP-Link is pretty much swapping them out if you complain. For $99, if you don't plan on ever wanting to swap out to open-source firmware like DD-WRT, then you probably won't beat the performance for the price.

That being said, if I were to do it all over again, I would get an Asus RT-N66U. I bought 2 of the Archer C7s because I was going to run them in bridge mode between the 1st and 2nd floor of my house using the 5GHz AC band. One of them ended up needing to be replaced after a couple of weeks, so I just returned it and replaced it by running a Cat6 cable through the floor. All of my devices are N are work great they way they are, so the AC is just a bonus, I guess.

I've had a soft spot for D-Link in the past, but these new cylinder shaped routers are not my thing and most tests show middling results for them.

www.smallnetbuilder.com is a great website

 

[Eric1987]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320091

Is that one better than the TP Link? Price is a big deal so if both are just fine I think I'll stick with the TP Link. I want to go wireless so I'll need to get an AC wifi adapter that works with the 5GHz band. Is that smart? And can the TP Link do dual band at the same time? Sorry not sure if dual band means it can run the 2.4 and 5 at the same time.

 

[s44]

You haven't set out your parameters, so it's hard to say which would be "better" or if something else would be "better".

 

[Eric1987]

It's a small apartment and this router is going to be used for gaming and streaming mainly. Chromecast streaming is going to be done a lot. Also which docsis 3 modem should I get? I am with Cox.

 

[s44]

Chromecast is 2.4ghz only, though having 5ghz could help if you're screencasting to the thing or something. Small apartment makes 5ghz (including AC, which is 5ghz only) more useful because it has shorter range and worse wall penetration.

The N66u is the most mature and stable dual-band "N" router, but it doesn't have AC... The TP-Link has AC but isn't as stable and glitch-free.

 

[JackMDS]

If you do not have an elaborate LAN (Local not Internet) consisting on A capable clients, devices than A would do nothing for you.

Price/performance/value, the Asus N66U is the preferred choice.

 

[JoeMcJoe]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320091

Is that one better than the TP Link?

Yes, a much better router, better by far. Has great firmware support from both ASUS and others.

 

[Eric1987]

If you do not have an elaborate LAN (Local not Internet) consisting on A capable clients, devices than A would do nothing for you.

Price/performance/value, the Asus N66U is the preferred choice.

I'm not that dumb I know I need devices that can take advantage of AC. I am buying a wifi adapter for my PC that is AC compatible and all the phones in the house are AC compatible. We'll see though. I was really looking for something not above 100.

 

[JackMDS]

"AC" compatible is meaningless when it is Not involving Computer that are engaged in Heavy LAN transfer via Wireless.

"AC" does very little to nothing to Phones and other devices that are primarily used for Internet connection.

 

[JoeMcJoe]

"AC" compatible is meaningless when it is Not involving Computer that are engaged in Heavy LAN transfer via Wireless.

"AC" does very little to nothing to Phones and other devices that are primarily used for Internet connection.

But people neeeeed 802.11ac as their phone supports it...etc.. as in this case. :biggrin:

 

[azazel1024]

"AC" compatible is meaningless when it is Not involving Computer that are engaged in Heavy LAN transfer via Wireless.

"AC" does very little to nothing to Phones and other devices that are primarily used for Internet connection.

Errr, no. There are plenty of reasons to want 11ac over 11n.

11ac has significantly better performance at range on 5GHz than 11n does, well I suppose with a decent router (my experience). Even if you aren't doing heavy file transfers WLAN to LAN or LAN to WLAN, this can be important. With a single stream client and 5GHz, it doesn't take much distance/many walls to reduce 5GHz performance to "sub-optimal", where as with 11ac, you going to get much better performance at the same distance. It isn't going to really extend range, but performance at the same ranges much better.

It also allows better usage of the spectrum you are utilizing (and allows the use of a bigger chunk of spectrum, see 80MHz channels), especially with multiple clients, again, even if you doing massive file transfers.

There are a significant number of reasons why 11ac has advantages over 11n. Especially in the scenario here where we are talking about a 100Mbps internet connection that I assume the OP would like to take advantage of. They also mentioned getting an 11ac adapter for their desktop too.

So, yeah, if all you are going to do is facebook or twitter on your phone, 11b is fine. If you are going to be doing things like streaming video to multiple clients, have a distributed space, relying on 5GHz, etc 11ac can provide a lot of benefits, even to just some lowly phones.

 

[Eric1987]

Everyone in the apartment are power users. So yeah AC will definitely get used. Thanks for the tips, guys.

 

[easp]

"AC" compatible is meaningless when it is Not involving Computer that are engaged in Heavy LAN transfer via Wireless.

"AC" does very little to nothing to Phones and other devices that are primarily used for Internet connection.

What an odd statement, because phones and other devices were a major consideration in designing the AC standard.

802.11ac allows them to have faster single stream connections, reducing the cost and space requirements of additional RF chains. And yes, there actually situations where that matters (like device backups, transferring media, etc). It also matters when you have computers doing heavy WAN transfers, because it means that there is less contention with mobile devices for airtime. The next wave of AC equipment will do even more in this regard, but supporting simultaneous streams with multiple clients (MU-MIMO).

So, there are actually good reasons to have an AC network when you have mobile devices that support the standard.

 

[JoeMcJoe]

Everyone in the apartment are power users. So yeah AC will definitely get used. Thanks for the tips, guys.

What is a power user I wonder?

 

[JackMDS]

What an odd statement, because phones and other devices were a major consideration in designing the AC standard.

Unfortunately "Marketing ploys, and Drama Queening" took over technological fair discussions during the passing 5 years.

Mimo per-se and Dual band are existing for a while.

The theoretical addition of 802.11ac over 802.11 a/b/g/n is not really translated to any significant improvement in real life functional Wireless Networks.

I have both the Asus N66U.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320091

And the Asus AC66U

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320115

I am sure that if I'll spend some time with the Tech Data I'll find some convoluted experimental way to show some gain while using the AC66U.

In real mainstream use of the two I can not find any real performance difference.

 

[futurefields]

What is a power user I wonder?

people who are on the internet a lot and use a variety of services and know what level of performance to expect from whatever package their isp provides and if its not up to snuff they will know right away and be unhappy

 

[azazel1024]

Unfortunately "Marketing ploys, and Drama Queening" took over technological fair discussions during the passing 5 years.

Mimo per-se and Dual band are existing for a while.

The theoretical addition of 802.11ac over 802.11 a/b/g/n is not really translated to any significant improvement in real life functional Wireless Networks.

I have both the Asus N66U.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320091

And the Asus AC66U

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320115

I am sure that if I'll spend some time with the Tech Data I'll find some convoluted experimental way to show some gain while using the AC66U.

In real mainstream use of the two I can not find any real performance difference.

That is good for you. I get exceptional performance out of my N600 router and Intel 7260ac card in my laptop. Around 200Mbps same room 5GHz performance and 180Mbps same room 2.4GHz performance. 5Ghz drops off rapidly to the point where 2.4GHz is easily faster just one room over.

I have pretty good coverage.

Enter the AC1750 router I am using. With 5GHz with that same Wifi card, I get 420-430Mbps same room 5GHz performance. That is...uh...more than double the speed.

Even a couple of rooms over, the performance is still very strong, up around 200-350Mbps, well over the performance I could get on 2.4GHz.

The router is faster on 2.4GHz as well over my N600, about 220Mbps, but 5GHz is faster until you are pushing the edges of 5GHz reception, at which point 2.4GHz ends up being a little faster, and then you lose the 5GHz signal and 2.4GHz is of course much faster and stretches a lot further.

Testing a bunch of locations through my house, disabling my access point, I see a gain from about 115% down to around 60% on 5GHz (just 5GHz vs 5GHz, not 5Ghz vs 2.4GHz). Figuring what 2.4GHz could do (so factoring in some 5GHz AC versus 2.4Ghz N performance), versus 5GHz, etc, etc, I come up with around an average normalized 35% gain through out my house. Of course the new router is a little faster on 2.4GHz too (yay beamforming or some other improvements) and it ends up being more like 50% faster averaged through my house.

In the rooms where I am most likely to be actively using wifi and/or where I am going to need/want the most performance (IE file transfers, and not just video chat, internet browsing, streaming audio/video) its more like 80% average speed increase.

Downside is, the router doesn't provide great coverage over my whole house, so on goes the 11n N600 AP. If I were to replace it with the same router in AP mode, average gain would probably be closer to 80% whole house averaged.

So...yeah. 11ac. Complete garbage. Wish they didn't invent it at all.

 

[azazel1024]

To add both with the explicit beamforming that my router does and the support that all 11ac chipsets have for E-BF, I see some pretty good gains at medium and long distances with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Then top it with 80MHz channels on 5GHz and 256QAM encoding on 5GHz as well when very close to the router and it is a very rosy picture.

 

[JackMDS]

That is good for you. I get exceptional performance out of my N600 router and Intel 7260ac card in my laptop. Around 200Mbps same room 5GHz performance and 180Mbps same room 2.4GHz performance. 5Ghz drops off rapidly to the point where 2.4GHz is easily faster just one room over.

Indeed it is Good for me, I get with the Asus N66U 450Mb/sec. through the 5GHz Next room with door open.

 

[azazel1024]

450Mbps link speed, or transfer speed? Because if you are talking transfer speed, I call BS on that is that is 100% of the link speed. Forward error correction takes up approximately 17% of the data stream as it uses 5/6 encoding (11g used 3/4 encoding).

Then you have packet headers, beacon frames, etc. Absolute best is about 80% per payload data. So with an N900 router, since it is 450Mbps per band, you are talking 360Mbps absolute theoretical maximum assuming zero dropped packets.

My previous examples were all realizable payload rates, NOT link rate.