New Router Search/existing Asus AC66u (having Issues)

[ask_j]

Hi,
I have around 4800 sq ft house (including 1200 sq ft unfinished basement). My Asus was in the basement with the modem and I was not able to get the range on the second floor. I contacted Asus and they mentioned to increase the signal power to 120 and said I should not be increasing more than that.

It improved the signal, but still not much. I have a HP 1810 24G switch also. I am having packet loss between 1% to 3% and my VOIP is not performing well because of this.

I am searching for a router with following features
1. Very good range
2. VOIP compatible
3. If possible, I should be able to name the reserved IP (DHCP page) for easier recognition. (I used to have DIR 655 and it was very easy to name the device when reserving the IPs, but I couldn't do it in asus 66u).
4. Port forwarding with masking ports ( I assume this will be available by default).
5. DMZ (I was thinking of using this with the VOIP device.)

Please help me find the router, I was looking at Netgear Nighthawk as well as Asus AC68u.
I do not know if putting the dd-wrt on any of these including Asus AC66u will give server better in my case?

 

[stevech]

VoIP should not be using WiFi. It needs to be wired-only. My experience with VoIP: I tried 3 VoIP service providers. None good enough for me, and far too poor for the needed WAF. Digital phone from cable co. costs a bit more, works as well as landline, and allowed me to cut the cord with evil AT&T who had gotten to twice what cable co charges. Reason cable co digital phone works well: Separated from Internet flow inside cable modem, and Cable Co has digital phone gear in their head end whereas generic VoIP companies have to struggle with hauling the VoIP across the Internet to a data center far away. And most VoIP companies run on a shoestring budget. I can do FAX on the digital phone; could not do so reliably on any SIP/VoIP with an ATA.

4800 sq. ft. definitely needs a router and 2 or more access points. One router can't begin to cover all that, and it's probably multi-floor. A modest router and some APs like the ASUS RT-N12 ($35) for moving devices. Immobile devices like PCs should always connect using cat5 cable, power line IP (HomePlug), or MoCA. For the latter two, see the forum section of that same title.

 

[ask_j]

Thanks for the reply. I do not use WiFi for VoIP. The reason for the VoIP is the cost for international calls. I understand that I may need to buy two routers.

My question is the should I go for AC68U or Netgear Nighthawk (there is a deal on this today). Also should I be putting DD-wrt on those? I can either sell my AC66U or give to a friend.

VoIP should not be using WiFi. It needs to be wired-only. My experience with VoIP: I tried 3 VoIP service providers. None good enough for me, and far too poor for the needed WAF. Digital phone from cable co. costs a bit more, works as well as landline, and allowed me to cut the cord with evil AT&T who had gotten to twice what cable co charges. Reason cable co digital phone works well: Separated from Internet flow inside cable modem, and Cable Co has digital phone gear in their head end whereas generic VoIP companies have to struggle with hauling the VoIP across the Internet to a data center far away. And most VoIP companies run on a shoestring budget. I can do FAX on the digital phone; could not do so reliably on any SIP/VoIP with an ATA.

4800 sq. ft. definitely needs a router and 2 or more access points. One router can't begin to cover all that, and it's probably multi-floor. A modest router and some APs like the ASUS RT-N12 ($35) for moving devices. Immobile devices like PCs should always connect using cat5 cable, power line IP (HomePlug), or MoCA. For the latter two, see the forum section of that same title.

 

[stevech]

I understand that I may need to buy two routers.

To be clear, the two or so added WiFi devices are not routers, they are access points that do not route. Your network would have one router. Confusion is that some products like the RT-N12 (ASUS) have an access point mode as well as a router mode, user-configurable.

 

[ask_j]

To be clear, the two or so added WiFi devices are not routers, they are access points that do not route. Your network would have one router. Confusion is that some products like the RT-N12 (ASUS) have an access point mode as well as a router mode, user-configurable.

Thanks, I missed the point. Do you still have a recommendation for the routers?

 

[azazel1024]

So you are connected wired and losing 1-3% of the packets? That is abysmal wired performance! I see less packet loss on my wireless connections with resonable signal strength and I think my worst wired connect sees less than a tenth of a percent of packet loss.

How exactly are you connected and seeing this kind of loss? VoIP phone? Or a VoIP gateway? Or is it a program on your computer?

How are you sniffing the packet loss? Wireshark and port mirroring?

For coverage, nothing will cover a 4800sq-ft house appropriately with a single device. Especially not a 2 story house + basement and with the wireless router in the basement. At a minimum with full stick and drywall construction I'd guess you'd need one upstairs and one on the main level, roughly centrally located with some resonably high gain antennas to cover it all with good signal strength (and probably still not great in the basement). AC duct work might still cause some deadzones or poor reception zones.

An AC68u will have a bit better of a time of it than the AC66u, but the 68u doesn't have all that much better range, and its going to end up being more linear and less vertical range. Higher gain on omnidirectional antennas means more gain horizontally, but less gain vertically. The 5dBi antennas on the AC68u are going to have something roughly like a HPBW of 32 degrees. That's a half power beam width. So 32 degrees above the plane of the antenna, you'll get roughly half the reception/broadcast power and it VERY quickly drops off after that. You could have as little as 5-10% power directly above or below the plane of the antennas.

That is compared to something like a 2dBi omnidirectional antenna, which might have a HPBW of something like 50-60 degrees and it might be closer to 10-20% directly above or below the antennas.

You can't cheat physics on this one. You can increase radio power, which lets the router be heard better, but if it can't hear the client, it doesn't do much good. Its partly why high power routers, if designed well, don't seem to have more than about a doubling or so of radio power over a regular router. Much more than that and any extra range you might get, the router can't hear the client. Closer in, it doesn't really increase range much at all, but it WILL increase transmit bandwidth a bit, because the Signal to Noise ratio is somewhat higher for the client for receiving, even if the transmitting client isn't any louder. So in effect, unless you are connecting to another high power basestation, you get a bit higher basestation transmit bandwidth at longer ranges that you would with a lower power basestation, but it doesn't really increase range for regular clients, because at a point, the basestation can't hear the clients anymore.

If you increase antenna gain, you decrease where it can listen. On an omni antenna, that means you gain horizontal range, but lose veritcal range. In a lot of ways this can be really good for single level house, or using access points on each level. Put some nice very high gain, like 9dBi, antennas on an access point on each level and it has very long horizontal range and better penetration through walls and it also can't hear/broadcast to clients on other floors very well (unless they are far away, and then the signal has to go through so much floor/ceiling and walls, it probably still can't talk to them).

Or with a router with mulitple radios, you can try to orient the antennas to really blanket the entire structure with them at vastly different angles, but this is likely to cause everything to connect at much lower speeds as you reduce the antenna diversity as the router can't receive or transmit on the other antennas very well to clients, even if the signal from at least one antenna can hit a client far away.

 

[ask_j]

Thanks for reply. Sorry I forgot to mention in my first post that now I changed my setup such that my modem (basement) is connected to AC-66u (first floor). Then the wire from AC-66u goes to the HP 1810 24g switch, then from switch it goes to VOIP and other devices and all rooms.

I am measuring the packet loss from
www.phonepower.com/speedtest

I did download wireshark and I am reading some articles on how to find the packet loss.

To increase the coverage now, I put my old router (DIR 655) in bridge mode with AC-66u. The only problem I have is that when I go upstairs I need to select different SSID for my devices. I read somewhere that if I keep the same name for all SSIDs then I do not need to switch, I did not try that yet, I do not know if it is possible for the device to take the strongest signal automatically.

I did not swap the firmware to DD-wrt yet. Today I saw the deal for netgear nighthawk and I thought of getting that and sell my AC-66u, but then I am so confused and thought of checking with net gurus.

 

[azazel1024]

Yes, use the same SSID and password for both. You devices will connect to the strongest signal, though they have set thresholds for how much stronger the signal must be and how weak the existing one must be before they'll switch.

In windows clients in the wifi driver properties you can change the behavior to be more or less sticky with your existing access point or switch to a new one.

Based on that test, my guess it it has nothing to do with the setup within your home and more the route that the VOIP packets have to take across the internet to the final destination/your VOIP provider.

 

[ask_j]

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. Most of the clients are Apple devices, like iPhone, iPad and Macbook Air. I have only one windows laptop. Can you please tell me how to change the settings on apple and windows devices?

I have another question on the same SSID. Like Asus has SSID for 2.4GZ and 5GZ, so should I have the same SSID for both too?

I have already contacted my internet provider (cox), but when they tested, they are getting the packet loss less than 1%, I am getting less than 1% most of the time, but about 20 tests I ran and about 30% of times I got the packet loss more than 1%.

They will get back to me.

 

[azazel1024]

OSX, no idea. iOS you cannot change the settings, but my iOS devices seem to do a resonably good job of roaming between access points.

Windows, go under network and internet, network sharing center and click adapter settings. Right click on it and properties should be one of the options. Then select advanced or whatever the precise language.

Driver settings should be there under one of the tabs. Just look for roaming.

I would set the same SSID for both 2.4 and 5GHz, but up to you. If you have a reason to set a client up on just one specific band, then you'll need to use seperate SSIDs for each band.

 

[ask_j]

Thanks a lot... It is really helpful..
Now coming to the last two questions.
1. Should I be using dd-wrt?
2. Since I can sell my Asus AC66u as the same price as I bought it (infact I already have a buyer), should I go for Netgear Nighthawk and put dd-wrt on that?

 

[stevech]

You devices will connect to the strongest signal,

Some do.
Some don't.
Some sometimes do.

 

[azazel1024]

Most do
A few don't
Most usually do

Fixed it for you. I obviously have not tested 100% of devices ever created, but the behavior I've seen across both iOS, Android and Windows on at least several dozen different devices show that most are resonably good at this. A few are great a very few just suck. Most of the suck seems to be confined to Android and embedded devices (for example, my father's wireless printer, he cannot get it to to connect to his airport located 15ft away on the same floor. It connects to his extreme located in the basement 40ft away. Only way he can get it to connect is seperate SSIDs. Anytime he switches to the same one it connects back to the extreme). YMMV of course.

On dd-wrt, I've never personally had a reason to go alt firmware on a router. To each his own though. I believe that Open WRT has a bit more active development than dd-wrt, but I could be wrong about that. Active development is a bit more the direction you want though. More likely people will actually close security holes.

One downside is, I am not aware of ANY alt firmwares that support 802.11ac still. So if you do roll one, you are limited to 11n operation only (well, or a/b/g too).

The nighhawk has lower range than the AC68u from what I know of it. Other than that, it is a very good router.

 

[RogerSC]

On dd-wrt, I've never personally had a reason to go alt firmware on a router. To each his own though. I believe that Open WRT has a bit more active development than dd-wrt, but I could be wrong about that. Active development is a bit more the direction you want though. More likely people will actually close security holes.

One downside is, I am not aware of ANY alt firmwares that support 802.11ac still. So if you do roll one, you are limited to 11n operation only (well, or a/b/g too).

The nighhawk has lower range than the AC68u from what I know of it. Other than that, it is a very good router.

There is very active development on dd-wrt, especially on the Netgear R7000. And if you look at the router tests here, you'll find that the RT-AC68U and R7000 have very similar range. I'm biased, since I'm using an R7000 with dd-wrt firmware at the moment, and it is performing really well for me, great range, very stable, no problems.

I don't follow the Open WRT development work, but it's hard for me to believe that it's more active than dd-wrt development, since dd-wrt development for the R7000 is full on at the moment. Still waiting for tomatoUSB firmware for the R7000, but dd-wrt is working so well that at this point I don't care much about it, either.

 

[azazel1024]

Agh. Sorry, I am biased because I am looking at the development on a couple of older (~3yr) routers and there hasn't been a peep on them in >12 months, but there is still semi-active development for Open WRT.