ant108
New Around Here
Hi,
We recently moved to a three story house (G/F, 1/F, 2/F and a roof terrace on top) and having problems with our existing system which worked well previously. The house is also unusual as it is constructed from poured concrete, so the walls are very thick and dense. Each floor is 700 sq ft, so we have 2,800 sq ft including the roof (although I don't envisage spending much time up there online).
As we are renting and there is no fixed line installed, so we have to use a purely wireless solution. Our current Time Capsule (2-3 years old) + Airport Express (even older) is not up to the job anymore.
The telephone access point is on the G/F in one corner of the house (which is roughly square in shape). The airport express is on the 2/F in an attempt to cover the house. Unfortunately, the Airport Express often fails to find a signal, unless it is plugged into a wall socket above the position of the router on the G/F. Even moving it 3-5 metres away means it cannot pick up and repeat the signal. Also the speed drops extremely quickly.
The broadband provider installed a 8MB service and it connects via PPoE. If I connect to this direct from my laptop into their modem, I get speeds of around 6.5 - 6.8 MB. Change that to the Time Capsule (on the G/F) and access wirelessly - at one metre away from the TC - speed drops to around 5.5MB. On the 2/F I am lucky if it gets to 1MB, but is often around 0.2-0.5MB - a huge drop off in performance and you can really feel it.
So I am planning to buy a new system. I have read the "Choose the right Wireless LAN" article and looked at the charts. I have been in a few shops and seen the Netgear N900, N750, N600 and N300 products (with extender), and also the Asus RT-N56U. Another guy introduced me to the Cisco RV200W and WAP4410N extender.
Honestly, I am a bit lost now. There is quite a large range of prices and seemingly of performance, plus I'm not really sure my 8MB service would be able to support the potential of these router in any event. I do want to back up to a USB drive (probably not the TC now), so USB is important and naturally its good to have adequate speed for that (3 Macs on the home network, and lots of photos / data as my wife works as a photographer). We also have an AppleTV which is not getting much use currently.
The biggest obstacle seems to me the ability to get the signal up to the 1/F and 2/F. Should I get two extenders, one for each floor? The Netgear N900 claims a much larger range than the N300 say.
I also saw a newer product called the Asus RT-N12P which has a 9dBi antena (its a N300 router), and one salesman was quite keen to sell it to me based on what I outlined above, even though it was the cheapest option he had shown me.
We are quite rural, about 6 houses close by, and I pick up about that many wifi networks.
Help!
Many many thanks in advance. I will definitely do a write up on the forums once I have decided on and installed the new system.
Best wishes, Anthony.
We recently moved to a three story house (G/F, 1/F, 2/F and a roof terrace on top) and having problems with our existing system which worked well previously. The house is also unusual as it is constructed from poured concrete, so the walls are very thick and dense. Each floor is 700 sq ft, so we have 2,800 sq ft including the roof (although I don't envisage spending much time up there online).
As we are renting and there is no fixed line installed, so we have to use a purely wireless solution. Our current Time Capsule (2-3 years old) + Airport Express (even older) is not up to the job anymore.
The telephone access point is on the G/F in one corner of the house (which is roughly square in shape). The airport express is on the 2/F in an attempt to cover the house. Unfortunately, the Airport Express often fails to find a signal, unless it is plugged into a wall socket above the position of the router on the G/F. Even moving it 3-5 metres away means it cannot pick up and repeat the signal. Also the speed drops extremely quickly.
The broadband provider installed a 8MB service and it connects via PPoE. If I connect to this direct from my laptop into their modem, I get speeds of around 6.5 - 6.8 MB. Change that to the Time Capsule (on the G/F) and access wirelessly - at one metre away from the TC - speed drops to around 5.5MB. On the 2/F I am lucky if it gets to 1MB, but is often around 0.2-0.5MB - a huge drop off in performance and you can really feel it.
So I am planning to buy a new system. I have read the "Choose the right Wireless LAN" article and looked at the charts. I have been in a few shops and seen the Netgear N900, N750, N600 and N300 products (with extender), and also the Asus RT-N56U. Another guy introduced me to the Cisco RV200W and WAP4410N extender.
Honestly, I am a bit lost now. There is quite a large range of prices and seemingly of performance, plus I'm not really sure my 8MB service would be able to support the potential of these router in any event. I do want to back up to a USB drive (probably not the TC now), so USB is important and naturally its good to have adequate speed for that (3 Macs on the home network, and lots of photos / data as my wife works as a photographer). We also have an AppleTV which is not getting much use currently.
The biggest obstacle seems to me the ability to get the signal up to the 1/F and 2/F. Should I get two extenders, one for each floor? The Netgear N900 claims a much larger range than the N300 say.
I also saw a newer product called the Asus RT-N12P which has a 9dBi antena (its a N300 router), and one salesman was quite keen to sell it to me based on what I outlined above, even though it was the cheapest option he had shown me.
We are quite rural, about 6 houses close by, and I pick up about that many wifi networks.
Help!
Many many thanks in advance. I will definitely do a write up on the forums once I have decided on and installed the new system.
Best wishes, Anthony.
