Cable routers?

Shimmyhill

Shimmyhill

Shimmyhill

Soldato
Joined
26 Oct 2002
Posts
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Location
Norwich
I have 150mb virgin bb and a 'super' hub and while the speed is fine the wireless is not - we have lots of devices connected and while in general it works the range is pretty poor and we have loads of minor issues, the kind that are far more annoying than they should be...

In short, I used to have an apple time capsule and the wifi on that was amazing - I only ditched it as i had a NAS for the data storage side so it made no sense having it and I hoped the superb would do a decent job - a couple of years later and enough is enough!!

My main questions are around what are the best routers out there, is there any new standard not he horizon??

Specifically what makes the Asus RT-AC68U better than RT-N66U for the average home user?

Any help or pointers for the router for me - strong wifi signal, the ability to have multiple things hooked up and doing lots of streaming etc being the main points I am after would be great!
 
AC is still growing. Not sure what the final speed will be. . .

But for lots of wifi you can seperate out which device is on what band. On the N router you can set devices to use only 2.4Ghz and others on 5ghz.

Looking, the best router would be the Asus RT-AC87U. Tad pricey mind!

I'm now using AC wifi and i'll never buy slower stuff again (for my personal use, kids can use 2.4ghz N)
 
I do have my superb running dual bands, I hear this is likely part of my issue as it has problems with 5ghz...

We have a mix of devices - an old original iMac so thats on G i guess, most other stuff is on N split across 2.4 and 5ghz. Not sure we have anything AC, maybe a Mac mini but my superb isn't the AC version - newest phone is a 5s and the important stuff like NAS, consoles and Sonos is all wired!

I do like that Asus, question is is it £50 better than the 66 version or should i go for a Netgear R7000 or others!?!?!?
 
What about power line adapters with wifi extenders? Or just a wifi extender?

My current setup, i'm with BT so have the HH5. My PC runs wifi AC 5ghz band pretty much all to itself. Set the adapter to only use AC wifi. The 4 iphones, only one can run AC the rest all N. Wifi TV I have no idea what wifi type is uses but streams 1080 content just fine. Sons pc is now forced to 2.4GHz N on a wifi extender which uses 2.4ghz only. Main TV and bluray player are on wired links as in the same room as the HH5.

But yeah everyone raves about power line adapters. Could you move some kit off the wifi to wired links?
 
I'm already kicking myself for not putting ethernet cables in when we rewired - I have already chased in one after the fact for NAS to router :(

I have looked at power line adaptors but they would be used in specific situations, we have issues with mobile devices in the house not getting good wifi or dropping off and then the kids using mobile data for youtube (data caps setup on phones now....)
 
I had problems with the range on the SH2, and a cheap TP-Link router provided a much greater range compared to it.

The N66U or AC68U will do fine, I guess it depends if you feel you really need AC or not. I'm using the AC68U myself but the main reason for that was because of the majority of devices we have that uses the 5GHz wifi is AC compatible. Apart from that, to the average home user, there's not much difference between the two routers.
 
On virgin media 150 too, recently got a tp link N600 cant fault it really has a solid range and connection if you want something a bit more budget.
 
Thanks, AC is just more future proof I guess - my MBP is getting on and next phones will all have AC so it makes sense!

I take it the Asus is preferable to the Netgear?
 
Both Asus and Netgear are as good as each other, I guess it will just depend on which one you feel is worth the money.
 
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