Quick help needed deciding between these routers!

pinkacidbootson

pinkacidbootson

pinkacidbootson

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Rhone-Alpes, France
I am looking for a new router, must be wireless-N and capable of mixed mode operation. I have found the following two:

D-Link DIR-615 for £25

Belkin N1 F5D8231 for £35

This is for a 3-storey student house, I am planning to either have just the one N router or to also connect a Belkin G+MIMO to it as an access point if needed. I am on Virgin Media 10Mb.

Any advice would be great :)
 
Belkin is a POS.

D-Link DIR gets very mixed reviews (people either seem to love it or hate it).

Though it doesn't support a lot of the fancy new wireless N stuff I'd personally actually look at a WRT54GL (Linksys) and flash it with Tomato firmware for the added traffic control features that are likely going to be useful in a student house.
 
And I take it EVERY single thing that people will connect to the wifi is 11n enabled?

Really no point in being fussy about it if it's going to be nullified by someone hooking their iPod up to it or old laptop or their Wii etc.
 
Atm we have a wireless G router, and 2 of my housemates get poor signal while everyone else gets a good signal. Those 2 housemates will be buying wireless N adapters.

Also my laptop is quite new and has N built in, so even better for me :D
 
I believe as soon as someone connects at G or B speeds, everyone gets G or B speeds, even if they personally have an N adaptor.
 
simon50 said:
I thought mixed mode meant that it could do all 3 at once?
Click to expand...

No, it means it will operate with all three at once however performance will be that of the lowest speed device.

Only way to do what you want would be a dual band access point and N cards that operate at 5Ghz.
 
I can't say I've been impressed with any of the Wireless N routers I've had experiences with, and from what I hear the Belkin N1 is very flaky, although I've not had experience of the router - just from what people tell me.

I've recently networked a three-floor house where range/stability was important on every floor. I got some power line adaptors and a netgear switch for each floor and cabled it that way. Picked up some cheap netgear routers and used those as access points on two of the floors, and the router and on the ground floor. Works perfectly, he is very please, too. (Although it did come at a cost, but well worth it in my opinion).
 
How do these homeplugs work?

Could I buy 3 homeplugs, have one connected to the router and the other two in the rooms where we have poor signal? I have no idea if that's how it actually works.
 
simon50 said:
How do these homeplugs work?

Could I buy 3 homeplugs, have one connected to the router and the other two in the rooms where we have poor signal? I have no idea if that's how it actually works.
Click to expand...

Yes. You will plug one by the router, and connect it with a CAT5 cable.

In the other rooms, insert home plug, CAT5 cable out of the plug and into your device, or network switch. Simple as.

(They're not the cheapest solutions, however, they are very reliable - and faster/more stable than wireless)
 
I'll look into the price of homeplugs then, are there any brands to avoid?

Also what sort of performance should I expect in a house with quite old wiring? I only really need 10mbps.
 
I've had a good look around, these are my options now:

Buy the D-Link router + two USB adapters = £55

Buy 3 homeplugs + cables = £64

Any more thoughts to help me decide?
 
simon50 said:
I've had a good look around, these are my options now:

Buy the D-Link router + two USB adapters = £55

Buy 3 homeplugs + cables = £64

Any more thoughts to help me decide?
Click to expand...

From a personal point of view nothing beats a wired connection. I have some netgear 200meg homeplugs and they have been rock solid (3 years+) now.
 
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