Router needed, 4 candidates

[warmachine79]

Hi folks i need a wireless router and this forum has been recommended to me.
Enviroment:
The Router
- will be connected to a FritzBoxFon 5050
- DHCP, DSL Connection (~12.000Kbit/s) and NAT are done by the FritzBox
- I need the router just to remove cable salad in my flat
- the wireless router is 8 metres away from the 3 PCs
- there is no line-of-sight between router and PCs; a wall, 15cm thick, concrete is PARTIALLY in the way. There would be a line of sight, if the wall was 30cm shorter; there are no other obstacles in the way (doors eg.)
- replaces a 54MBit Router which especially lacks range
- will be used with WPA2 (current router also uses WPA2)

What is important to me:
- "Signal Power" for I am afraid of the wall will screw everything up
- Should be 100% reliable (no router crashes etc)
- Typical Scenario: DVB-S Stream from PC1 to PC2. Meanwhile PC2 is downloading things with full DSL-Speed. PC3 playing Battlefield 2. Still need low pings. Thats 12.000Kbit/s DSL, maybe 10.000kbit/s the Stream (as it is just MPEG-2) and some bytes the game.

No Need:
- GBLan, USB, VoIP

And here are the candidates:

1)
Belkin N Wireless
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a373952.html
2)
Belkin N+ Wireless
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a369151.html
3)
DLink Wireless N DIR-635
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a199813.html
4)
Netgear RangeMax Wireless-N WNR3500L
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a470247.html

5) WNR-834B
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a197775.html
getting eye-cancer from that color...is this the same one, just bundled?
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a340405.html

6) WRT160NL
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a429110.html

7) After reading a lot, I have to add this one:
Buffalo Wireless-N Nfiniti High Power
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a431166.html



Well, I hope that I read the right FAQs and understood them and narrowed down the right candidates. One comment on candidate 4:
It is not available yet in Germany, as far as I understood, the special thing about this router is the ability do apply an Open-Source Firmware to it.
1) What can 4) do more than 1)-3) when he has Open-Source Firmware on it?
2) Is the ability to apply Open-Source Firmware to a router an advantage in the scenario I describe? Can I tweak ranges with it by "putting more juice to the antenna? I am keen to experiments!

 

[pender]

So to be clear, you are going to use the new router as a Wireless Access Point (WAP) and disable its NAT/routing features - correct?

If so, Open Source Firmware does enable the ability to adjust the transmit power / sensitivity of the wireless radio. If you use the router as a Gateway, open source firmware enables for exquisite features that are usually only found on enterprise firewalls and switches, such as VLANs, VPN server and endpoint, advanced QoS filters, WAN Traffic monitoring, Wireless bridging and Repeating etc ...

So if you just want a WAP, Open source is not a must because you usually pay a premium for this option while sacrificing better wireless performance. Fiddling with transmit power also introduces a lot more noise and can hamper performance if you don't pay attention to what you are doing.

Can you specify your exact budget. Also, 802.11n in 5Ghz mode does not work well through concrete walls, which should limit your choices to more cheaper options.

The Belkin F5D82XX series perform well and average 45-50Mbps actual throughput in 20Hz mode.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_wireless/Itemid,200/chart,29/

I don't know if this router is available in your location and if it is in your price range, but Tim Higgins, the Editor of this site, just reviewed this Netgear - it has the best coverage (in 802.11n mode) and great throughput. It should provide enough bandwidth for the concurrent streams you mentioned. This might be overkill for your application as you don't need a gateway.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30925/96/

Barring that, I would get a Linksys 802.11n 2.4Ghz router because they have great wireless performance - even though people dislike them as gateways, it should work great as a WAP. I would PM Tim Higgins to get his input especially if choosing a Linksys model because they have so many different 802.11n products.
Avoid 802.11n 150N products. A decent Linksys model (WRT310N or WRT320N) should cost between 45 and 65 euros depending on the retailer.

Also the WRT310N supports DD-WRT firmware.

For a Cheap Open Source DD-WRT firmware 802.11n device, try the Netgear WNR834B. It should cost around 30 euros. It gets on average 42Mbps downlink.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30152/96/

 

[warmachine79]

So to be clear, you are going to use the new router as a Wireless Access Point (WAP) and disable its NAT/routing features - correct?

Right.

If so, Open Source Firmware does enable the ability to adjust the transmit power / sensitivity of the wireless radio. If you use the router as a Gateway, open source firmware enables for exquisite features that are usually only found on enterprise firewalls and switches, such as VLANs, VPN server and endpoint, advanced QoS filters, WAN Traffic monitoring, Wireless bridging and Repeating etc ...

So if you just want a WAP, Open source is not a must because you usually pay a premium for this option while sacrificing better wireless performance. Fiddling with transmit power also introduces a lot more noise and can hamper performance if you don't pay attention to what you are doing.

Ok, so Open Source stays an option.

Can you specify your exact budget. Also, 802.11n in 5Ghz mode does not work well through concrete walls, which should limit your choices to more cheaper options.

I don't want to spend more than 80€

The Belkin F5D82XX series perform well and average 45-50Mbps actual throughput in 20Hz mode.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_wireless/Itemid,200/chart,29/

Number 1 and 2 are both F5D82xx. Is there another difference except 1000MBit/100MBit?

I don't know if this router is available in your location and if it is in your price range, but Tim Higgins, the Editor of this site, just reviewed this Netgear - it has the best coverage (in 802.11n mode) and great throughput. It should provide enough bandwidth for the concurrent streams you mentioned. This might be overkill for your application as you don't need a gateway.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30925/96/

Yeah, this router already got my attention during FAQ-reading, but it is beyond range.

Barring that, I would get a Linksys 802.11n 2.4Ghz router because they have great wireless performance - even though people dislike them as gateways, it should work great as a WAP. I would PM Tim Higgins to get his input especially if choosing a Linksys model because they have so many different 802.11n products.
Avoid 802.11n 150N products. A decent Linksys model (WRT310N or WRT320N) should cost between 45 and 65 euros depending on the retailer.
Also the WRT310N supports DD-WRT firmware.

1) 310N not available in Germany
2) There are just 3 Linksysproducts left:
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat...sieren+&xf=529_draft+802.11n~758_MIMO~547_300
3) Why are Linksys-Routers disliked as gateways?

For a Cheap Open Source DD-WRT firmware 802.11n device, try the Netgear WNR834B. It should cost around 30 euros. It gets on average 42Mbps downlink.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30152/96/

Added this one as an option, though it doesn't have good ratings:
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a197775.html
And is that 42Mbps to EACH PC?

So thanks, Pender, that's a lot of Information - any comment on the DIR-635?
Ah, and one question I forgot - what is MIMO (I know what it means - but do I need it - do I have any advantages in the mentioned scenario?)?
Edit: Yes, I need MIMO .

Edit: yet another question: the WRT160NL can be open-source flashed as well? So the 3500NL would not have an advantage any more?
According to this list, not every WRT160NL is able to be open-source-flashed: http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database

I don't know why, but currently, the DIR-635 is my favourite. But I can't find anything on it on this page, is it sold with a different name in the U.S.?

 

[pender]

If you are comfortable with this notion, you can buy US products at US prices from any US online retailer. Essentially this service ships your product to an interim US address, then it is shipped to you. If custom fees and extra shipping costs are not too expensive, you can usually get an unavailable product at a greatly reduced price.
http://www.myus.com
I know that 802.11 2.4Ghz products made for North America operate in channels 1-11 only, so this may be an issue for you or not.
newegg.com is a great cheap US online retailer for electronics.

The 42Mbps downlink is usually the overall bandwidth available to concurrently connected clients, but the test results are from a single client. That means the 42Mbps of downlink bandwidth is shared assuming the client signal quality is the same. If one client is uplinking and an other is downlink at the same time, the overall bandwidth may be more, or may be less or may be the same. Some routers offer more overall throughput compared to a straight downlink stream when clients are uplinking and downlinking to each other through the WAP.

Fortunately for us, Tim Higgins usually tests concurrent uplink and downlink streams when he reviews a product. You just have to hope he reviewed the product and did all the leg work.

The Belkin N and Belkin N+ use both the same Railink CPU and WLAN adapter. They should in theory deliver the same performance if they have the same number of antenna
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30387/96/1/1/
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30634/96/1/1/

The wireless performance of the Belkin N+ is pretty good at close range
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30634/96/1/4/

There are different PCB revisions of the 160N. The 160NL is the open source version of the 160N and the stock firmware is based off the Linux kernel and not VxWorks like in some cheaper Linksys products. The 160NL and 3500NL both use open source firmware - but neither DD-WRT or OpenWRT project has developed a build for either unit, so at the moment they are unsupported. Both source codes are publicly available from respective websites, but DD-WRT is kinda of a closed source project as there are really only two or three people that can make builds for that project. OpenWRT is not really user friendly unless you install the Web GUI, and still is not as easy to WET or Repeat a network. The 160NL is also much more expensive than the 160N, but both offer decent performance.

The DIR 635 is not available in the North American market, but it is a 3x3 antenna draft 2.0 2.4Ghz router. It seems comparable to the DIR 655 but likely slower. Dlink routers with the Ubicom chipset are sought after as gateways rather than WAPs because of the great QoS and their ability to handle P2P connections. Higgins and myself both have 655 and the performance is good, but some people encounter problems with bad firmware and dropped connections. I would get this for a gateway rather than a WAP.



I would personally get a cheap WNR834B, even though the performance is far from the best, it still delivers and can double as a Wireless Ethernet Bridge/Repeater with DD WRT. Next I would get a WRT160N (not NL) or used WRT150N, WRT160N, WRT300N or WRT350N off craigslist and put DD-WRT on it - get proper hardware revision. The 160NL has been out for at least two months but no 3rd party builds have been released. The 160N should deliver good consistent wireless performance like all Linksys/Cisco products. Both are about 50 euros.

Most Linksys routers running stock firmware have a connection timeout issue that make them unsuitable as gateways when running P2P apps. It causes the router to freeze in under 10 minutes. Linksys will likely never fix this because it can kill a legitimate connection when it was not supposed to. I think Linksys should give people the option at least to change the timeout from days to hours. 3rd party firmware corrects this though.

300Mbps 11n routers are MIMO and use multiple streams. 150Mbps 11n routers are not MIMO and uses a single stream. 150 11n routers should be avoided.

 

[warmachine79]

Well, I don't need P2P-ability. At the moment, I'm thinking about just buying two Routers, as the bandwidth may become a bottleneck. So I don't need to decide as I want the DIR-635 as well as the WNR834B . I just will buy both. So I can try around with Open-Source and have a reliable router as well. I'm so keen to the DIR-635 because in european magazines and internet-sites, it gets very good reviews and the user receptions are very good as well, most of the other routers do get bad reviews OR bad receptions. But I think I will stick to your recommendation, degrade the FritzBox to a DSL-Modem and the DIR-635 will become the gateway.
In Germany, there are just 6,50€ between WRT160N and NL:
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?fs=wrt160&in=

What shops do deliver to Germany?

 

[pender]

So I can try around with Open-Source and have a reliable router as well.

I think you'll find as most do, that the 3rd party firmware make the device more reliable that the out of box router with stock firmware. If the router is prone to crashing or hanging you can schedule a reboot every night with 3rd party firmware either through the GUI or through a cron.

Just a suggestion, but buy the Netgear first. You can always buy the 635 later. The Buffalo HP amplified router, Netgear 3700 and Dlink 825 should come down in price as 802.11n is finally ratified an if you feel the need for more coverage or bandwidth, you can always buy an additional WAP to supplement the Netgear.


Another budget router that has good all round performance for its price is the TP Link WR941. I suggest you check it out first because they cost under 30 euros. Overall they get good reviews for those on a budget and are becoming very popular in the US.
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a334836.html
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a340658.html

What shops do deliver to Germany?

I don't know of any European online retailers that deliver to Germany. You should ask this question in a separate thread and I am sure you'll get a lot of responses.

 

[warmachine79]

Ok, after having a look on the benchmarks again, the high average performance in Azimuth convinced me to buy the WR834B. Last question: is it able to hide SSID?
So then I put DD-WRT on it? As I noticed, there are two option concerning Open-Source?

Edit: On the way .

 

[pender]

Once DD-WRT is installed, you can hide the SSID. You should also be able to do this using the stock firmware as well. Perhaps try the stock firmware first since it is only a WAP, but if you do decide to flash, follow the instructions carefully and proceed at your own risk
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Installation#Netgear_WNR834Bv1
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Installation#Netgear_WNR834Bv2

 

[warmachine79]

Once DD-WRT is installed, you can hide the SSID. You should also be able to do this using the stock firmware as well. Perhaps try the stock firmware first since it is only a WAP, but if you do decide to flash, follow the instructions carefully and proceed at your own risk
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Installation#Netgear_WNR834Bv1
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Installation#Netgear_WNR834Bv2

I mean what is the difference between DD-WRT and Open-WRT and which one do you suggest to use? And what is "tomato" (just stumbled across that).

 

[pender]

The netgear device does not support OpenWRT or Tomato. Only a select few of 802.11g routers support tomato, but it is a great basic firmware with very granular QoS (best QoS of the top three 3rd party firmwares).

OpenWRT was the most difficult to use because it did not include a Web Interface (but does now with kamikaze). Some features that are possible with OpenWRT are transparent in the WEB GUI because it requires manually editing the config files with a text editor. It would be nice if these features were scripting and available in the UI, but there is likely no plan for this. This is why it is not user friendly for the casual user.

An area where OpenWRT is more powerful is that supports the newer 2.6 Linux kernel for most chipsets, so you can swap out the wireless adapter in some routers for a more powerful one and load the drivers for it, which is not possible in the other two firmwares (this can also be done on 2.4 kernel). Also, network admins or enthusiasts that are accustomed to linux firewalls feel at home because tweaking the network infrastructure can be done from a console and is not restricted by a a multipurpose GUI (granted this can be accomplished in other firmwares in the same manner). There is also usually more prepackaged optware for OpenWRT depending on the kernel, chipset and firmware version.

IMHO, the experience for the casual user is similar to the following

OpenWRT is an analogue to old school Linux distros
DD-WRT = Windows (not meant as an insult)
Tomato = Mac OS X (without knowledge of the underlying Mach kernel)

 

[warmachine79]

The netgear device does not support OpenWRT or Tomato. Only a select few of 802.11g routers support tomato, but it is a great basic firmware with very granular QoS (best QoS of the top three 3rd party firmwares).

OpenWRT was the most difficult to use because it did not include a Web Interface (but does now with kamikaze). Some features that are possible with OpenWRT are transparent in the WEB GUI because it requires manually editing the config files with a text editor. It would be nice if these features were scripting and available in the UI, but there is likely no plan for this. This is why it is not user friendly for the casual user.

An area where OpenWRT is more powerful is that supports the newer 2.6 Linux kernel for most chipsets, so you can swap out the wireless adapter in some routers for a more powerful one and load the drivers for it, which is not possible in the other two firmwares (this can also be done on 2.4 kernel). Also, network admins or enthusiasts that are accustomed to linux firewalls feel at home because tweaking the network infrastructure can be done from a console and is not restricted by a a multipurpose GUI (granted this can be accomplished in other firmwares in the same manner). There is also usually more prepackaged optware for OpenWRT depending on the kernel, chipset and firmware version.

IMHO, the experience for the casual user is similar to the following

OpenWRT is an analogue to old school Linux distros
DD-WRT = Windows (not meant as an insult)
Tomato = Mac OS X (without knowledge of the underlying Mach kernel)

Ah ok, according to that, I am very fine with DD-WRT. So thanks for the lots of lines helping me with my decision. I almost ended up buying this one before I posted here:
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a438623.html
That would have sucked...

 

[pender]

Just be sure to try the stock Netgear firmware out first. Since it is a WAP, DD-WRT will really offer no benefit besides the possibility of multiple SSIDs. Adjusting Tx Power really does not do a whole lot if there is heavy interference or physical obstructions in the way. Flashing this router with DD-WRT is trickier compared to others, so it might be nice to use the stock firmware first and if you need a Wireless Ethernet Bridge or new Gateway, then try to flash it.