Router Recommendations for Condo

[Emrys]

I'm looking for some clarification on routing options for our condo. The internet is provided by the building and is distributed into our unit through a networking box in our bedroom closet (corner of the unit). There is ethernet run to each room in the condo from this networking box, but in order to split the network to each room a router must be kept in the networking box, which is enclosed. Also, most of the walls in the condo are concrete.

My initial thought is to get a gigabit router, disable the wireless and keep it in the networking box as the primary router. I would then set-up a secondary wireless N router in our office which is central to the unit and a switch in the living room by the media center to connect the DRV, Apple TV, Blue-Ray Player to the wired network.

Any recommendations on routers? I'm assuming that for the one in the networking box it doesn't need to be a fancy wireless router since I am only going to be using the wired capabilities/firmware.

I've been looking at the Netgear 3700, 4500 or Asus N66U for the wireless (edit: realized I wrote wired first) router, but haven't narrowed down a router to use in the network box.

I could also be over thinking this.

Thanks

 

[s44]

Huh? You only need one router, one AP, and one switch.

Might as well keep the router in the box. Anything gigabit that you can flash to Tomato should do -- no use going overboard on dual-band radios you won't use. Newegg seems to be shipping WNDR3500L v2 for $60 with a nice 128mb RAM...

Use the central location for a wireless AP... no actual routing. Whatever you like. Then the switch for your media room.

 

[Emrys]

I was going to use the second router as the access point, thus two routers. It's been a while since I've used an actual access point, but what I tried before weren't very good. I've used both Tomato and DD-WRT in the past and it looks like the router that you linked to had DD-WRT. Any reason to flash it to Tomato over DD-WRT?

 

[JackMDS]

Any reason to flash it to Tomato over DD-WRT?

It easy and less chance to brick the Router.

On the other hand DD-WRT is more features rich, so make sure that whatever are the features that you need are supported by Tomato.

BTW - These Routers cost just few $$ more, they add Dual Wireless, IMHO each one is better than the Netgear.

 

[s44]

Any reason to flash it to Tomato over DD-WRT?

Not sure there's an official DD build for the v2... Plus Tomato is better.

As an AP you could use an AC66u (ac, lots of $), refurb E4200v1 (dual-band n, $68), or some standalone AP (only the 2.4ghz ones like this are reasonably priced)...

Btw, I believe the 4500 is the same as the 4200v2, which is actually worse than the 4200v1 in terms of radio throughput.