Access Point / Modem-Router for high bandwidth & range WiFi coverage

[Core2Extreme]

Hello everybody,
I've recently upgraded my internet at home to a 100Mbps VDSL2 line and I would like to make some changes to my network as it no longer covers my internet speed nor my new needs ( streaming blu-ray to the HTPC wirelessly ).

Some necessary details:

1) There's a download server running downloads/uploads & Torrents 24/7 *I would freeze operation only when watching a movie in the Home Theater room if deemed necessary*

2) For the time being and the foreseeable future ( 12-24 months ) I will not be able to go with wired ( ethernet ) networking.
When I renovate the house I will install networking cables all over the place, but for now EVERYTHING HAS GOT TO BE WIRELESS.

3) I would like to stream full blu-ray movies ( maximum 54Mbps bandwidth ) wirelessly from the server in the server room to the HTPC in the Home Theater room

4) All the PCs except the office 1 have the Asus PCE-AC68 802.11ac WiFi PCI-Express adapter

5) Obviously I would like the download PC to have all 100Mbps of download speed available whenever it's downloading, a speed limit imposed by the WiFi network is not acceptable.

My house is like this ( excuse my drawing skills, I suck at it ):

Which AP/Router do you think will cover all my needs/requirements above ?
I've been eyeballing the Asus RT-AC68U, but also thought about the Netgear R7000.

Thank you very much in advance!

 

[System Error Message]

Full blu-ray bitstreaming is something no wifi client is able to do because it requires more than 500Mb/s of consistent throughput. If you take wifi practical usage even with an AC1900 client it means placing wifi in the home cinema. Use wire instead for it.

A single AC1900 router will do fine for your place but position it where it is most needed which would seem to be in the office.

Wifi blu ray streamers usually use an encoded stream that requires 40-50Mb/s instead of bitstreaming.

consumer routers dont have the best multiWAN, consider ubiquiti or pfsense or mikrotik.

 

[JJ Duru]

1. A solid pfSense router running on an X11SBA-LN4F mainboard with 8GB RAM. Optionally you could for an old Supermicro A1SRi-2758F, with ECC memory, which will allow you to virtualize both pfsense and freenas (storage purposes)
2. A Ciso SRW2008-K9-NA L3 managed switch, that will also cover your future needs for wiring the entire house
3. A Ubiquiti Networks Enterprise AP Unifi to cover everything you need wireless. The model presented is N-only afaik.

Costs breakdown
1. a. router mainboard Supermicro X11SBA-LN4F - $228.33 (compsource)
b. router memory 2x4GB so-dimm ddr3 - $40 (newegg)
c. M350 Universal Mini-ITX enclosure - $40 + shipping

2. Cisco SG300-10 (SRW2008-K9-NA) - $130 (amazon)
3. Ubiquiti Networks Enterprise AP Unifi - $64 (amazon prime)

Total Cost ~ $502

The advantage of the above over a regular route, regardless what manufacturer is:
- very future proof - at least 10 years
- LOTS of futures that work, especially when it comes to pfsense and the cisco switch, which is L3 managed switch.
- no streaming hiccups expected, only depending on your ISP bandwidth.
- when upgrade time comes:
- wifi - you only need to upgrade the Ubiquiti AP, not the entire config - less downtime.
- pfsense - given the fact it's virtualized, take a snapshot of the VM, and run the upgrade process or install a new vm and swap them. Something goes wrong, you go back to what works.

 

[Core2Extreme]

Full blu-ray bitstreaming is something no wifi client is able to do because it requires more than 500Mb/s of consistent throughput. If you take wifi practical usage even with an AC1900 client it means placing wifi in the home cinema. Use wire instead for it.

A single AC1900 router will do fine for your place but position it where it is most needed which would seem to be in the office.

Wifi blu ray streamers usually use an encoded stream that requires 40-50Mb/s instead of bitstreaming.

consumer routers dont have the best multiWAN, consider ubiquiti or pfsense or mikrotik.

( h.264 / AVC-Pro encoded streams not RAW video material )

Blu-ray discs average around 40Mbps ( Megabits per second ) with a maximum of 54Mbps NOT 500Mbps
Add the overhead to it and leave some margin for transmission errors, you can't exceed 70Mbps.

Gotta give it quite a thought haha, I'm not sure where I stand on setting up a PC dedicated for pfsense and storage.

 

[System Error Message]

( h.264 / AVC-Pro encoded streams not RAW video material )

Blu-ray discs average around 40Mbps ( Megabits per second ) with a maximum of 54Mbps NOT 500Mbps
Add the overhead to it and leave some margin for transmission errors, you can't exceed 70Mbps.

Gotta give it quite a thought haha, I'm not sure where I stand on setting up a PC dedicated for pfsense and storage.

when you said bitstreaming it sounded like you wanted to stream raw blu ray video like as if playing directly from a blu ray disc.

 

[Core2Extreme]

Terminology can easily cause confusion, especially over written text on the internet

Now that we're on the same page, it sounds like a good AC1900 router in a centralized location like the AC68U should be able to handle a stream of 60-70Mbps from a WLAN client to another WLAN client, right ?

 

[Trip]

Re- JJ Duru's post, I'd highly suggest separating routing, switching and wifi, for all the reasons he mentioned.

Further to that, for routing, you don't necessarily need a spendy pFsense box; a $60 EdgeRouter-X will do just fine for 100Mb of WAN... it should even be able to do Smart Queue QoS (fq_codel+HTB) on 100Mb and not really break much of a sweat...

For switching, I would highly, highly, highly (did I say highly?) recommend trying powerline AV2 adapters before wifi bridging (a potential hassle, and expensive if done properly), at least for all your bandwidth and latency-demanding endpoints. And an L3 managed switch would be nice, but not absolutely necessary at this point, either.

Last, the elephant in the room: wifi. Either as many standalone all-in-ones set into AP mode as are necessary, or UniFi AC; as many units as are needed to blanket the house.

The segmented approach gives you way better reliability, performance and modular upgrades for when you're ready/willing to swap to the next wifi standard, router platform, switching fabric, etc. And all for roughly equivalent of what the upper-end overpriced consumer boxes would cost.