Looking For A New Router

[Jonell Fernandes]

Hi,

I am currently using a Cisco E1200. However if i have multiple walls in between and the range wont reach the other end of my house.... I may have to use 3-4 range extenders in between.

I need a good router that may atleast reduce the number of extenders i may need.

I live in India and the prices of routers are tottaly screwd up for eg:
Asus AC 1750 RT AC66U costs 17k
Netgear R7000 costs 10k
Nighthawk X6 is 16k


my actual budget is around 6k... but was wondering if i should invest in a C7(8k) or the R7000(10k). Or suggest me something better. I dont mind increasing my budget if it is worth it.

I keep my router on 24x7 and have around 8-10 devices on it always.

 

[L&LD]

I wouldn't personally recommend any of those.

Do you have access to the RT-AC56U? Do your devices have 2 antennae or less? Of the devices that have 3 antennae, do you need them to achieve full connection speed (1300Mbps)?

I'm not sure what 17k is, but the RT-AC56U is regularly on sale in NA for $100 or less.

I don't think you need 3 or 4 range extenders. Can you relocate the main router to a more central location in your home?

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/asuswrt-merlin-378-55-3_hgg-final-mod.26524/page-2#post-199549


The RT-AC66U (although a very old design and with similar base hardware to the RT-N66U) would support the RMerlin firmware or the forks thereof (including john9527's).

The other options you list? Not what I would be trying to get when all aspects are considered.

 

[System Error Message]

I think he means a country with much lower currency. In a lot of countries the products are sold at a premium and asus doesnt actually get anymore profits for that. They need to stop selling to these greedy resellers and start selling to the more efficient ones that can turn a buck with a lower cost and lower product price.

The AC56U, AC68U are both great and the AC3200 actually has better range than the AC68U because of better antennas and more. Even the R7000 is good as an AP too. TP-links are also good if you're only using them as APs. Ubiquiti and mikrotik indoor APs can also be considered too and mikrotik's prices tend not to be jacked because the people who usually buy them know what they're doing and they dont have any marketing so they are less famous than ubiquiti.

5Ghz wireless AC can pierce through a number of walls as long as it is not metal but it is more likely the range thats limited so it really depends on how big your house is.

It would also be helpful if you mentioned what country. A lot of people will get confused when you mention a big number like 17K. What currency? Is it a benchmark number? You can clearly see from his list the better r7000 is priced lower than the AC66U, what a rip-off.

 

[Jonell Fernandes]

1k or 1000 indian rupees = US$15... I did mention India above
The RT-AC56U is 12k

Basically My House is split into 2 parts with a garden in between... I already have 1 wifi range extnder and may have to add another to incase it even futher coz i dont get the signal in half the place... We have extremly huge walls soo the signal suxs (around 20" walls)

 

[System Error Message]

It means ASUS is being overpriced intentionally. The netgear r7000 is better than the ac56U in wireless but stock firmware is only less basic than tp-links however forks of RMerlin's firmware have been made for it. You should write to ASUS telling them that businesses in india are pricing their products much higher than other brands compared to other countries.

Make sure you wire your APs to avoid disappointing wireless performance.

 

[avtella]

Get the R7000, it's decently priced. The AC66U is also good but definitely not worth spending Rs17,000 (~$250) as that's pretty expensive, the AC68U is similar hardware wise to the R7000 and I see it's selling at upwards of Rs22,000 ($300+) on Flipkart... Crazy prices.

Also if I recall properly D-Link also has decent pricing there, so you may want to look into that.

 

[RMerlin]

It means ASUS is being overpriced intentionally. The netgear r7000 is better than the ac56U in wireless but stock firmware is only less basic than tp-links however forks of RMerlin's firmware have been made for it. You should write to ASUS telling them that businesses in india are pricing their products much higher than other brands compared to other countries.

Everything electronics is overpriced in India. I have a long-time customer who moved to India a few years ago (took a CEO job there), and he frequently order some stuff from us in Canada because it's way, way overpriced in India.

 

[avtella]

If you live in Chennai, Mumbai and some other places you can get pretty close to US prices, if you buy in electronic "Trade Center" areas and also bargain a little.

 

[RogerSC]

Agree that of the choices that I see, taking prices into account, the R7000 looks best for you. Good idea to start there and see where you are. While it does depend, to a large extent, on the construction of your house, here my R7000 covers my whole house, upstairs and down, and that includes a bunch of walls *smile*. That may or may not be the case for you, you'll have to try it and see what happens.

Since you mention using wireless extenders, if you can use access points instead of extenders, you won't pay the "each extender divides the throughput of the previous one in half" problem. For example, if you have one extender, the maximum throughput that it can have is one half of your main router's throughput. Then if you daisy chain another extender with that one, you're down to 1/4 of the main router's throughput. Not great. An access point is essentially a wireless extender that has some sort of hard connection to your network, like an ethernet cable, or using powerline networking or MoCA. Obviously, an ethernet cable is best, but MoCA 2.0 can be very fast as well. Just some food for thought.