Help me pick a router?

[sfx2000]

Interesting network, and perhaps one that requires a different approach - for the older WEP only devices, dedicating an older AP/Router might be a better approach - giving it a unique SSID and doing all the security precautions that you can do...

Another recommendation is to use a second AP mid-way through the house on a wired connection...

Trying to drive a whole house, with all the gear you have - you might be expecting too much from a single WiFi AP.

 

[ChemNerd]

Interesting network, and perhaps one that requires a different approach - for the older WEP only devices, dedicating an older AP/Router might be a better approach - giving it a unique SSID and doing all the security precautions that you can do...

Another recommendation is to use a second AP mid-way through the house on a wired connection...

Trying to drive a whole house, with all the gear you have - you might be expecting too much from a single WiFi AP.

I thought about that, just using two (I have an old WRT-54GL I could get my hands on). Especially if I stay with the AirPort Extreme. To be fair, most of the devices aren't active at a given point - I live alone. Typical use is one of the entertainment devices (PS3, 360, Slingbox, HTPC, Sonos) doing something and then a wireless device (laptop, iPad) doing something - sure the iPad and the phone are connected for push stuff but it's minimal overhead I'd assume.

As for the mid-way part, I'm not sure I can really do much for that - the router is about in as middle of the place it can get - floorplan is with kitchen and living room on the west half of the apartment and the den, bathroom, closet, and bedroom on the east half. And the router is in the closet on the wall toward the middle of the apartment.

If I do try the two routers, say with the WRT-54G - better to run internet into that and then to the newer router or internet in to the newer router and then in to the WRT-54G?

So currently it's a debate of sticking with the WNDR4000 or the AirPort Extreme. I like the AirPort but it's limitations (3 Lan ports, speed, lack of control) and cost are a bit of a turn off in comparison and the Netgear appears stable. I think I still have a week to return the Netgear, so I'm still open to ideas.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[Mark Uhde]

WEP is practically no security, I'd suggest ditching devices that need WEP if at all possible. If not use a separate AP for WEP, and isolate it from your main LAN (won't keep people from stealing your Internet but will protect your network). But really, WEP can be cracked in just a few minutes if there's some traffic, just don't do it.

If the Netgear is working well, I'd stick with it. The Airport Extreme isn't that expensive IMHO (for dual-band 3-stream), but the Netgear will give you more options. Also, I shouldn't have said 2.4 GHz will always work better in a noise-free environment, that's untrue since 5 GHZ gives you the ability to use 40 MHz channels. I meant that in general, the range on 2.4 is so much higher, that in the real world it works better at any distance.

 

[ChemNerd]

WEP is practically no security, I'd suggest ditching devices that need WEP if at all possible. If not use a separate AP for WEP, and isolate it from your main LAN (won't keep people from stealing your Internet but will protect your network). But really, WEP can be cracked in just a few minutes if there's some traffic, just don't do it.

If the Netgear is working well, I'd stick with it. The Airport Extreme isn't that expensive IMHO (for dual-band 3-stream), but the Netgear will give you more options. Also, I shouldn't have said 2.4 GHz will always work better in a noise-free environment, that's untrue since 5 GHZ gives you the ability to use 40 MHz channels. I meant that in general, the range on 2.4 is so much higher, that in the real world it works better at any distance.

I will make the effort to ditch them, but that'll be down the road a bit. I guess with security concerns though I'll expedite it.

For the Netgear it works fine with two exceptions: my phone won't connect to the 5GHz band. It sees it, but it will not under any circumstance connect to it (It did with the other routers though). It's a minor issue. Second is the range. This seems to have been helped by placing it on some boxes though.

I don't think the Airport Extreme is that expensive, but it is $50 more than the Netgear and when testing on my 3-stream computer the performance is drastically lower (Netgear is posting 115Mbps+ for up/down - AirPort is giving 70 up, 60 down). That's not to say the AirPort speeds aren't enough, they are but I'm failing to see the point in paying $50 more and needing to buy another hub/switch for when I wire my new desktop up in my office (since the AirPort has 3 LAN ports). Is there one? I'll test and tweak a bit more if there's any suggestions.

 

[Mark Uhde]

No point at all if the Netgear is working well. The Airport Extreme is not a great performer, I've just found them very stable. I found an interesting comparison test on Tom's Hardware though, where they compared several enterprise-grade AP's and an Airport Express. Under heavy load (60 simultaneous clients downloading) the Airport Express collapsed, whereas all the enterprise products EXCEPT Meraki (which despite it's absurdly high pricing, actually did worse than the Airport Extreme on some tests) handled it (though no one else handled it close to as well as Ruckus, proving that Ruckus' claims really do hold up in real life).

The test is here: http://c541678.r78.cf2.rackcdn.com/reviews/toms-2011-wlan-review-part-2.pdf

 

[sfx2000]

Airport Express. Under heavy load (60 simultaneous clients downloading) the Airport Express collapsed

Airport Express is a pocket router - under no conditions, one would expect that device to support 60 unique clients.. most SOHO routers would also fall apart...

In those conditions - you really have to look at Enterprise/Carrier grade AP's...

 

[Mark Uhde]

Airport Express is a pocket router - under no conditions, one would expect that device to support 60 unique clients.. most SOHO routers would also fall apart...

In those conditions - you really have to look at Enterprise/Carrier grade AP's...

Dang, that's the second time you caught me out on the same typo. I meant Airport Extreme. I don't know why my fingers like typing Express. Read the test report I linked to. They compared the Airport Extreme to multiple carrier-grade AP's. The results were - Meraki was about the same as the Airport Extreme (collapsed under load and didn't handle noise well at all basically), everyone else was similar (though Cisco was much better in terms of airtime fairness) to each other, except Ruckus. Ruckus wiped the floor with EVERYTHING else, especially in high noise environments and under heavy load. Quite interesting report. I've always been suspicious of whether or not Ruckus was worth what they charge. If that test data is anything to go by, the answer seems to be absolutely - if your environment needs that type of capacity and resistance to interference. It also clarified what is frankly fairly obvious, Meraki isn't even close to worth what they charge (unless dead-easy is the main thing you care about).

 

[sfx2000]

No problem... consider the "P" in ExPress as Pocket

Even Apple caps the recommended max client load at 50, and I would scale that back to 30...

High density - Ruckus is pretty strong, also consider Xirrus...

Tropos used to scale well, as did Aruba, and Cisco, in certain configurations does very well, just more planning needed.. and $$$ for Cisco, less so for Xirrus and Ruckus.

 

[stevech]

Tropos (best meshing in the biz, IMO) was recently acquired by a company who may stir Tropos into the corporate soup. Too bad. Tropos pioneered meshing on a large scale. It can be said that the demise of metro WiFi such as Earthlink undertook didn't help Tropos, nor any of the others in meshing. Cisco never got serious about metro WiFi meshing... they seemed to pursue the DOCSIS/WiFi marriage - which didn't happen either.

 

[ChemNerd]

It looks like I'll be keeping the Netgear WNDR4000. I wish the range was a little better but I can fix that with keeping the router up on some boxes in the closet (really improved it from fair/good to excellent). Worst case in a few years I can play the hand me down game again.

Thanks for the help everyone.

It was interesting to read the article about business class routers. My office just put in a lot of Cisco Aironet's (8 per floor, 10 floors per building, 6 buildings) really makes me wonder what it set them back in total.

 

[Mark Uhde]

It was interesting to read the article about business class routers. My office just put in a lot of Cisco Aironet's (8 per floor, 10 floors per building, 6 buildings) really makes me wonder what it set them back in total.

That article was only looking at the wireless AP performance, only the Airport Extreme was a router. And those set your company back a pretty penny, yes, but it's worth it if it's what they need. A few lost employee-days costs them more than a good AP. With that said, I'd really only see a reason to recommend Cisco in a pre-existing Cisco install (to stay with one vendor), or if they needed VoIP (Cisco has the most widely-supported VoIP fast roaming out there, end of story. Want VoIP? Buy Cisco).