Please recommend a wireless router

[JamesEW]

Hi,

I am on Virgin Media 100mb broadband and i've been using the Super hub modem plugged into a Linksys WRT54GL Wireless G router.

I think this is quite old technology now and caps my speed of upto 30mb/s. I don't think it has gigabit ports. The linksys wireless router has been very solid with little wifi drop outs but I am silly paying for 100mb broadband and not getting anywhere near that.

I want to replace this and am looking for a recommendation for the best wireless router of around £50-£100. I have a htpc and normal pc connected by ethernet cable but every other device I connect is wireless.

I was tempted by Linksys EA6350 Dual Band Smart Wi-Fi Gigabit Router for £60 but i'm interested to see if there is a much better router in my price range that I should consider?

I would really appreciate the help here as I'm a bit out of my depth with this stuff. Ideally I want to buy it, set it up easily and be done. Not really into the idea of flashing firmware on it.

 

[TheVoice]

Haven't Virgin been sending out new hubs lately?

 

[Avalon]

The WRT54GL was old when the SH launched, it's ancient now. I suspect you'll get near line speed plugged direct into the SH, but from memory the WRT54GL was WAN limited way lower than that (I ditched ours when 50mbit rolled out iirc). Personally i'd plug in a Unifi AP - better coverage, easier management, but the Microtik options are cheaper, then again you could look at something like the AC56U which shares the same CPU/RAM as the AC68U but slower wifi, either way it'll saturate your WAN speed easily and can be run in AP mode, it also falls within budget used and runs DDWRT/Tomato/Merlin derivatives. I'm sure others will be able to suggest other options, but that would be the way i'd look to go.

 

[JamesEW]

I guess because i'm mainly using a wired ethernet connection (with wifi for a few devices), the Asus AC56U and AC68U might be overkill. What is the general consensus on Linksys? I definitely want to replace my existing one with something that has gigabit ports and latest ac wi-fi standard.

Also what advantage is there to running different firmware? I don't mind installing one e.g Tomato but not if it's a huge risk and likely to cause me problems down the line.

Keep the recommendations coming. Thanks guys.

 

[Sparx]

Why do you not just ring Virgin and ask for the new hub?

Is your current one old or what? If not why not just use it

 

[Vibein]

Using a Asus here, no point spending the cash on one if not needed just get a new superhub

 

[JamesEW]

Wi-fi drop outs on the super hub were really common, and not when I was using the linksys router. The config options with superhub were also extremly limited.

 

[Avalon]

Linksys today is a very different company that's it was in 2005 when it launched the WRT54GL, it effectively lost the enthusiast market as despite the 'L' line being supposed to signify it could run Linux (and by implication the DDRWT firmware), they'd castrated the hardware to the point it was crap, it's still going though. The CPU even overclocked couldn't manage modern WAN connections at full speed and it was inferior to the earlier GS versions in pretty much every single way.

ASUS eventually occupied the enthusiast market and Linksys (now under different ownership) tried to cash in on its credibility with a retro themed AC1900 option form memory, it didn't really do anything special and wasn't that competitively priced, it's main 'USP' was to remind us how far cosmetics have come in 12 years.

The SH is equally outdated in VM terms, call up and explain the wifi is shocking and you're at the stage where you'd like to disconnect the service and go elsewhere. A new SH3 will magically appear a few days later along with the offer of an ongoing discount.

 

[JamesEW]

Anyone else with any recommendations or know of any current good deals on a decent wifi router?

 

[Avalon]

Anyone else with any recommendations or know of any current good deals on a decent wifi router?

They will send you a free - and significantly better - router if you do as suggested, surely it's worth a phone call?

Also your posts seem to contradict, you state you're averse to flashing a firmware that takes 5 minutes but find the SH config limited and just want it to work. What was limited on SH that you needed? Just trying to understand what you actually want/need.

 

[JamesEW]

.

 

[JamesEW]

They will send you a free - and significantly better - router if you do as suggested, surely it's worth a phone call?

Also your posts seem to contradict, you state you're averse to flashing a firmware that takes 5 minutes but find the SH config limited and just want it to work. What was limited on SH that you needed? Just trying to understand what you actually want/need.

I appreciate your reply and i'm not too technical with networking technology. The thing is I've heard about lots of issues people have had with the new VM SuperHub 3. I've only ever used my SH2 connected to an old Linksys and what I liked is the amount of options for configuring say port forwarding, setting up a fixed number of DCHP and generally things that would make bit torrent, HTPC and other things play nice.

When I last checked, there was barely anything to configure this with SH2. My logical or illogical conclusion was to just buy a half decent new wireless AC wifi router and avoid any headaches down the line. Again i'm not clued up on these things hence this post.

That said i'm not clueless with computers and could flash something (ooh err...sorry).

So what benefits would I get from pleading with VM to give be a brand new SH3 for free, other than cost. If it's going to play up, have regular drop outs and issues, it might not be the ideal solution.

Feel free to put me correct on many of my likely false assumptions here.

 

[TheVoice]

In the month and a half since you created the thread, you could have already received a new hub (for free with minimal effort, probably) and have found out for yourself whether it's any good or not.

 

[JamesEW]

In the month and a half since you created the thread, you could have already received a new hub (for free with minimal effort, probably) and have found out for yourself whether it's any good or not.

What is with this unhelpful response? Quite clearly I outlined that I didn't want to mess about with trying to secure a VMS 3 to find I've made things worse (from many of the comments about this hub). I had already missed their deadline to get a free upgrade so it would have involved me trying to make a justification of why i needed a new hub for free.

I needed a reliable router and was looking for recommendations from people here who likely know a lot more than I do. If you didn't want help then stay out of the topic. Not hard is it? Do you work for Virgin Media or something?

 

[TheVoice]

It wasn't clear at all, you just seemed apprehensive about making a phone call to your ISP to get a bit of kit for free that would potentially have solved your issues weeks ago on the basis that some people have said they've had problems with it, which will be the case for any ISP-provided hardware. It's essentially a no-cost option for you ("I've been a customer for x years and I've never had an upgrade, send me a new router please"), and even if it doesn't do what you want I think I'd still want to use it in place of your current ancient hub to pair with whatever router you eventually decide on.

 

[amiva]

I recently purchased a new wireless router ASUS RT-AC5300, I think its function and quality are great.

 

[amiva]

ASUS RT-AC5300, incorporates simultaneous triple band for maximum wireless performance as does the RT-AC3200.

The main feature of this new router is that it incorporates triple simultaneous band with Wi-Fi AC. On the 2.4 GHz band, we can achieve speeds up to 1.000 Mbps, thanks to its four antennas in MIMO 4T4R configuration and NitroQAM technology that uses 1024QAM (or Quadrature Amplitude Modulation). As a result, this router will attain the maximum speed on this band. Regarding the 5 GHz band, it has two radios to broadcast in both 5 GHz bands (higher and lower channels as we have seen in the ASUS RT-AC3200 router, it uses a tri-band router) and can achieve a maximum speed of 2165 Mbps (by frequency band). We owe this level of performance to its four antennas in MIMO 4T4R configuration and 1024QAM frequency modulation. In addition to these features, it also incorporates the MU-MIMO technology in order to optimize the speeds of fast clients in conjunction with slow clients.
If possible, you can also learn more about the relevant information.

 

[4K8KW10]

I recently purchased a new wireless router ASUS RT-AC5300, I think its function and quality are great.

ASUS RT-AC5300, incorporates simultaneous triple band for maximum wireless performance as does the RT-AC3200.

The main feature of this new router is that it incorporates triple simultaneous band with Wi-Fi AC. On the 2.4 GHz band, we can achieve speeds up to 1.000 Mbps, thanks to its four antennas in MIMO 4T4R configuration and NitroQAM technology that uses 1024QAM (or Quadrature Amplitude Modulation). As a result, this router will attain the maximum speed on this band. Regarding the 5 GHz band, it has two radios to broadcast in both 5 GHz bands (higher and lower channels as we have seen in the ASUS RT-AC3200 router, it uses a tri-band router) and can achieve a maximum speed of 2165 Mbps (by frequency band). We owe this level of performance to its four antennas in MIMO 4T4R configuration and 1024QAM frequency modulation. In addition to these features, it also incorporates the MU-MIMO technology in order to optimize the speeds of fast clients in conjunction with slow clients.
If possible, you can also learn more about the relevant information.

This is extremely expensive. Actually I can't imagine its application. At company's headquartes, for instance?

 

[Phantom]

The GT-AC5300 is turbo charged