Which router to suggest as Christmas present?

[p3matty]

Wife wants to know what I would like for Christmas, thinking about a new router for our new house. I currently have a dlink 655, which I've had since they first came out. It was fine for our previous place, but it doesn't quite cut it at our new ~3,500 sq. ft. home (3 floors). Biggest issue is that our office is on the 3rd floor on one side of house while my "mancave" (HTPC, PS3, and XBOX) is on 1st floor on total other side. I don't think I can get any CAT wire between two locations, so we may have to go wireless to get one to talk to the other.

Would getting a new higher powered router in the office, and then a new "bridge" be a good idea?

As for router alone, I'm leaning toward an ASUS model as I already have many of their other products and have been very happy. I'm not sure an "AC" router is needed, but would it make sense if I'm also going to get a "bridge" for the far side of house? We don't have any AC clients, only 2-3 year old laptops, newer iPhones, blackberry tablet, and hopefully soon some rokus or apple TVs. Would the N66u suffice, or should I spend a bit more to go with a AC66 or the new AC68 model?

Thanks for any suggestions you could offer!

 

[thiggins]

I suggest a new N600 class router and a pair of 200 Mbps homeplug adapters to connect it and the DIR-655 together. You won't be happy with wireless bridging.

Since you like ASUS, that would be an RT-N65U black diamond. The N66U might give you a bit more range. But you won't get higher throughput than with the N56U unless you have N450 / N900 class devices.

 

[p3matty]

Thanks for the reply! Range is very important to me, so I was leaning toward the asus models with the biggest range claims (not sure if they are accurate).

I've been looking into power line adapters as well, but the basement in my house is powered by a separate breaker box (a sub box) than what the 2nd and 3rd floors are on. It's my understanding that for power line adapters to work properly, they need to be connected to the same breaker box, but also the same either side or phase of that breaker box. Do I have that right? If they won't work from one breaker box to the other, what other options might you suggest?

 

[thiggins]

If all breaker boxes are just branches off the same mains feed (the same side of the distribution transformer) they should work. But you do need to watch out for noise sources, the worst of which are cell phone chargers and other "wall-wart" types of supplies.

Keep in mind when looking at the performance charts that we test with an AC1750 class adapter (the ASIS PCE-AC66). This provides the highest throughput and can also help effective range by providing higher throughput at lower signal levels. But the point where signals totally drop (especially in 5 GHz) might not be that much farther.

 

[p3matty]

Would you mind breaking down that first sentence a bit? My first thought was going to be a power line adapter to connect the two locations (and hopefully have wifi at each which should cover all of the house).

The basement had previously been a separate unit, and thus had it's own sub break box - though connected to the main which feeds the upper two floors. Would two power line adapters be able to talk to one another across two breaker boxes like that?

Would you have any recommendations for power line adapter kits? You can have more than 2, correct? Could I have one in the office connected directly to the "main router", and then have one in the master bedroom (for blu ray player), another in the living room (for same thing), and a 4th in the basement to connect to the 2nd router acting as a access point or bridge (I'm not sure which term would be correct)?

Again, thank you for all of your help!

 

[RogerSC]

My experience here with the rt-n56u versus the rt-n66u is that the range on 5GHz. is much better on the rt-n66u. So if you intend to use 5GHz. for media streaming, I'd recommend the rt-n66u over the rt-n56u.

This is my opinion from my use around my home, and I've tried a lot of different firmware versions on both routers.

 

[CaptainSTX]

You can have multiple powerline adapters. There is some limit but it is over ten. Depending on the distance between units (adapter - breaker Box - adapter ) and sources of interference your speed on each adapter will vary.

Another potential way to link devices and APs is MOCA adapters using coaxial cable runs in your home. If you have CATV this is a good solution, not so good if you have satellite TV.

I use both powerline and MOCA and am satisfied with both. I use the MOCA for my backbone linking my primary router to two APs and the powerline for less data intense applications. I can stream my SlingBox all day on my LAN with no problems. I also have several Ethernet drops. I would run more Ethernet, but I'm in a rental unit for the near term. Wifi is only suitable in my location for low speed casual tasks as I can pick up over 30 SSIDs from my neighbors.

Once you figure out your budget for hardware consider calling an electrician and having them estimate running Cat 5e cables. Ethernet cables could well be cheaper and the performance will be better and more dependable. An electrician skilled in doing wall fishes can accomplish some amazing things. What you consider difficult or impossible is just an everyday task for an electrician with specialized tools and experience.