Advice on a good router for a large home

[Aidan]

Hi. Newbie to the forum. Trying to sort out my parents wifi. Currently a fibre connection from ISP (Spark in New Zealand) to an ASUS router (RT-56U) and a Netgear extender. The problems being experienced are that networks range is poor (hence the range extender) but my parents (not being very tech savvy) struggle with switching from the router to the extender.

Their house is ~ 250 sqm/2700 sqft. The router is at one end of the house (this is where the internet connection point is).

I think the best solution would be either a better router which would have the power to project the network over a bigger area i.e. would likely need to be 500sqm/5400sqft given it will be located at one end of the house. Does anyone know of a router with that sort of range?

 

[MichaelCG]

More powerful router isn't the answer....the clients are still going to be limited in how well they can respond back across the same distance and obstacles while using smaller antennas and lower power transmitters.

2700sqft will be a challenge with a single device. It will really come down to knowing the layout of the house along with the building materials. This is a similar challenge I had with my wife's parents as well. They have a fairly large home that is part early 1900's construction and part 2000's construction. The old part is plaster while the new part is sheetrock. WiFi barely penetrates the plaster walls so a single AP in the house was only usable in the newer part of the house.

We ended up with a Ubiquiti UAP-AC-LR in the front of the house in the old part and another UAP-AC-LR in the back newer portion of the house. They use the same SSID so the devices generally roam between the two APs without user interaction or impact. They really need to add a third AP to fully fill out the coverage, but it is a huge improvement over their old setup.

A lot of the options you will need to look at will depend on what cabling/connectivity options you have to drive the 2nd AP. A direct hard Ethernet line is the best option...next comes MOCA and then you have PowerLine and WiFi mesh stuff to look at. All depends on the budget and performance requirements.

 

[tannebil]

There isn’t a magic bullet for most situations. A wireless “mesh” network comes the closest but the results will be specific to the dwelling, where the access points are located, where the network is most heavily used, and even the devices being used. The only way to know if it’s going to work is to try them. Since many of the mesh products you’ll read about may not be easily available or even legal in NZ, it’s going to be an even bigger adventure.

You can try MoCA or powerline but product selection may be poor again in NZ and, like wireless mesh, they are unpredictable in results. I’ve used all three successfully in the US and I’ve had reliability and performance problems with all three at other times In other situations. Maybe they work or maybe they don’t. It’s strictly trial and error.

That would lead me to suggest you need to bite the bullet and install some CAT5e or better in the house to maximize the probability you are going to get a network that works. The cabling is only tricky if you want to get fancy and run it through the interior walls. If you run it on outside walls or have an open attic or basement, it’s not nearly as hard as it sounds. There are lots of possible designs but the simplest is likely to wire just three points: the ISP entry point, a second point half-way down the house, and a third point on the far end. Join them up with a small gigabit switch and they will have a backbone that will work with lots of different wireless access products both today and tomorrow.

If you are not handy with that sort of thing, a handyman or a low-voltage contractor (like an alarm installer) can do it easily enough. In the ideal world, you’d find a local networking company to do it but if you in a rural area, that might be impossible.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Get the Netgear Orbi system. Router on one end of the house and the satellite in the middle problem solved. Enjoy!

 

[thiggins]

I also suggest NETGEAR Orbi, which is designed for the router-at-end-of-home situation. But keep in mind that devices, not the router, are in charge of roaming (changing between router and extender) decisions.

I would first try a single SSID system. Put both bands of router and extender on one SSID. Then have your folks just shut off WiFi on the their device and turn it back on when they move between locations. Most people don't need "seamless" / fast roaming where the connection isn't broken when moving between AP and extender. They just need the device to switch to the better connection...

Shutting Wi-Fi off, then on, forces the device to re-associate and hopefully find the better AP.

 

[ppilot]

I am a little late to this but based on my personal experience I would avoid the Orbi system for now due to firmware stability issues still being an issue for a fair number of people. Specifically the backhaul band still has issues with sustained high usage like watching live tv or steaming a movie from a NAS.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Orbi has been running fine with the latest firmware. I have 45 devices connected with no issues. My family streams 4K video in HDR12 Dolby Vision with no lag.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[pege63]

Keep the router and buy 2 UniFi UAP‑AC‑PRO "accesspoint"
There is also several options for you a like a, Orbi Kit (set of 2) or why not a TP-Link Deco M5 (set of 3) cost half on the Orbi kit and is a "mesh" and with 1 Gb cable backhaul that can be done in a row "Daisy chain network", Orbi have to be in the middle as a "star network" and does not have cable backhaul it has a own 5GHz WIFI backhaul.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Deco is good if you can run a cable between all 3. If not the other 2 act as repeaters and cut your speed in half. For that I can get a $20.00 repeater.

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[ppilot]

Orbi has been running fine with the latest firmware. I have 45 devices connected with no issues. My family streams 4K video in HDR12 Dolby Vision with no lag.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

That's why I said a fair number of people and not everyone, but I know a couple of people here lost patience with all the issues and went a different direction. I would have as well if I hadn't already missed my return window. To give Netgear credit, they are still keeping up contact with me regarding testing results but they've acknowledged the backhaul is an issue as have other users on the Netgear forum. Also I swapped in two Google Wifi units to see if other factors were causing the issues and they had zero problems.

 

[pege63]

Deco is good if you can run a cable between all 3. If not the other 2 act as repeaters and cut your speed in half. For that I can get a $20.00 repeater.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Yes but i would go for my first point the 2 UniFi UAP‑AC‑PRO units and then just for the cheap mesh option the TP-Link Deco M5 in cable backhaul. (as i allready have switches in all of my rooms). Are you sure that they are acting like repeaters, its says the nodes talk to each other in 867 Mbps and you can ad more nodes to it?

 

[sm00thpapa]

Yes but i would go for my first point the 2 UniFi UAP‑AC‑PRO units and then just for the cheap mesh option the TP-Link Deco M5 in cable backhaul. (as i allready have switches in all of my rooms). Are you sure that they are acting like repeaters, its says the nodes talk to each other in 867 Mbps and you can ad more nodes to it?

It's tough taking advice from people as I have talked to so called professionals in networking and you get one story from one and another story from another. I spoke to a TP-Link rep and they said wireless they are repeaters and lose half speed. So it's better to have the Ethernet backhaul they said. Also got the info from Dong Ngo from Cnet. I take it he knows what he is talking about.

 

[System Error Message]

despite all the solutions put forth your place isnt very big. Newer routers have better range. There are 2 things to improving wifi performance.
1) better RF design. This means better chips, better design that for the same rx/tx power, you can see the signal a lot better on the same SnR, this is the most important factor in choosing one wifi AP over another, not how hi you can put your tx power. Newer routers may nerf tx power in firmware updates but thats because they dont need such large tx power. Its the same with the clients too not only in design but in environment. Stacking laptops ontop one another will cause interference and significantly reduced wifi signals.

2) newer wifi protocols. Switching to wifi AC and 5 Ghz will help things. Lower range of 5Ghz means loss noise from other sources too. 5Ghz has become crowded already but has less range than 2.4Ghz which helps.

When you extend your wifi, the best way is to add an AP via ethernet. If you cant the other options are powerline and point to point wifi using directional antennas or dishes as both of these dont introduce more noise for existing APs. While in general wifi extenders work, they are a poor choice for extending wifi especially if on 2.4Ghz or having limited wifi bandwidth available.

 

[pege63]

It's tough taking advice from people as I have talked to so called professionals in networking and you get one story from one and another story from another. I spoke to a TP-Link rep and they said wireless they are repeaters and lose half speed. So it's better to have the Ethernet backhaul they said. Also got the info from Dong Ngo from Cnet. I take it he knows what he is talking about.

Aha OKi well i just tested them out at home but i was using cables from switches and therefore i thought they were APs as it was so they said to me.
I never tested them out without cables, it never hit me then do the resultated were so good.
Hate when they say one thing and later on it shows to be something else, like very bad.

As for the Orbi have they fixed as the have told that there will be a firmware update this summer, which will allow you to relay from one setellite to another, and it just adds that extension?