Assistance with picking out new router for parents?

[Techno]

Just wanted to see if I was on the right track....my parents are going to ditch xfinity modem / router combo and buy their own. I was going to advise them to go with either the surfboard 6140 or 6190 and for wifi router was thinking about advising them to buy the AC3100 with the 4 gig lan ports.

Overall they don't need a lot of functionality other than "great" wireless distance (they have a few outdoor wifi cams they plan on installing) and maybe setting up VPN down the road.

Are there other routers that may give me similar performance that I should also be looking at or is the 3100 a pretty solid choice?

Thanks.....

 

[System Error Message]

i really just did a quick summary on the various models of asus routers. Wireless distance isnt something you can improve much through a router. Granted good RF design, radio chips and dedicated antennas help but it gets to a point where the device can see the AP but isnt strong enough to communicate back (you see your wifi but it fails to connect).

The AC3200 has good range from reviews but its basically the AC68U with more radios, better antennas and slightly faster CPU.

The AC3100 is also a solid choice too.

 

[sfx2000]

FWIW - I've got two recent model Linksys WRT's out there supporting family members from remote.

Their needs are pretty simple, and it just works - not so sexy or complicated...

 

[lighting]

I set up both my parents and my in-laws with ASUS RT-N12 routers. Just 2.4 gHz, but range is adequate for their small houses and they've been bulletproof. And under $30 on Amazon.

 

[MichaelCG]

My in-laws were just setup with an Asus RT-N66U for routing duties and a pair of Ubiquiti UAP-AC-LR to cover their house properly. Their house is half early 1900's and half early 2000's, and the WiFi just didn't work worth a crap in the older part of the house due to the plaster walls. This mandated the use of a dedicated APs in different parts of the house.

This also got them away from a dependency upon the ISP provided router which tended to get swapped out on a somewhat regular basis that forced them to constantly reconfigure things at the house. Now they can freely switch ISPs without much pain.

 

[System Error Message]

I set up both my parents and my in-laws with ASUS RT-N12 routers. Just 2.4 gHz, but range is adequate for their small houses and they've been bulletproof. And under $30 on Amazon.

I wouldnt call them bulletproof, if you shot it with a gun its going to pierce through like paper and possibly spoil it.

If the needs are simple some ISPs give decent routers. BT and other ISPs that use BT's line in the UK all give the same tripple channel (now 4 channel MU-MIMO) that is decent in performance and reliable but very basic in featureset in the firmware. If you are getting them a router to replace the horrible ones they have than my suggestion would be to go for dual channel wifi AC at least. There are many routers you can choose from such as the asus ac68U, tp link's equivalent routers and even the netgear r7000 (not sure about other netgear models). you dont really need asus other than to look fancy as the extra features in the firmware arent going to be particularly useful.

What matters is that it can do NAT at WAN speeds and that it is reliable and has all the wifi protocols at least and if you can, cover the house with wifi if it isnt too big. If it is a big house you will need to add APs around which can be ubiquiti APs or even other consumer routers reused or inexpensive ones.

 

[Techno]

Thanks everyone for your replies....appreciate it. I will just address some of them: still leaning heavily on the 3100 but not sure if it's overkill and maybe I can get away with a 68U. I looked at a few of the Linksys routers that are comparable to some of the Asus routers I've mentioned and they look good but some are missing built-in VPN and I do not want to load different firmware for that functionality (especially when Asus builds it into their models). The RT-N12 is a good simple router for a good price but lacks Gig Lan ports so that's a no go...especially because they run a file server and often transfer extensive data within the Lan fairly often. I'm familiar with the N66U (because I have one) and it's pretty old at this point and only single core processor so it could potentially reach it's limits in regards to VPN connections, etc.

 

[KevTech]

Right now I feel the best price/performance ratio would be the 68u or 1900P.

 

[System Error Message]

If you need wifi performance for LAN than the AC68U is the minimum. newer routers like the ac3100 can do LACP which further helps LAN.

 

[KevTech]

I was going to advise them to go with either the surfboard 6140 or 6190

I would advise you not get the 6190 or any modem that has the puma 6 in it as there are issues that so far have not been fixed with a firmware update.

It may be that the issue is hardware related and can not be fixed with a firmware update.

This thread discusses the issue with puma 6 and lists just about every model to avoid.

https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31122204-SB6190-Puma6-TCP-UDP-Network-Latency-Issue-Discussion

This thread is about the 6190 issues.

https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r3...terrible-modem-Intel-Puma-6-MaxLinear-mistake

 

[sfx2000]

FWIW - I've got two recent model Linksys WRT's out there supporting family members from remote.

Their needs are pretty simple, and it just works - not so sexy or complicated...

Reason why I do the Linksys WRT's is due to the remote management... the Linky's are stable if not exotic on settings - and the WRT1900's have excellent far-range coverage...

Another thought might be the Google WiFi devices... they generally work well, and are secure and open to authenticated remote access for management.

 

[wouterv]

Read this here:
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/goodbye-to-wi-fi-router-classes.37514/
It turns out to be very difficult to find the real specifications of client devices like laptops, tablets and smartphones when it comes to wireless.
Many devices these days support 802.11ac, so far so good and that is usually as far as the specification goes.
To figure out more details like if they support 2x2 or better is difficult.
Many devices support "only" 1x1 802.11ac which at it self is not bad, the wireless connection will still be up to 433 Mbps on 5 GHz, with download/upload speeds of up to 300 Mbps.
Only the top line of products do support higher throughputs, next is to consider how much data throughput you need.
If you are only using the Internet for browsing, e-mail and Youtube you first limit will usually be your ISP speed.
I suggest to go for proven robustness, for Asus I suggest any model out of the RT-AC68/RT-AC1900 series.