Does a high price wifi router make a difference?

[IHateMyJob2004]

I currently have a 3 year old 802.11n router. "cheap but good". I think it is a Linksys. And probably, "that Linksys" everyone is thinking about. I don't have any 802.11ac devices in the house yet. But I might get the Roku 4 soon.

My wifi router is also located in my kitchen since it is central. I'd love to move it to the basement. My current router is located centrally in my 2 floor colonial of 2500 sqft. In the extreme corners of my house, where my TVs are, I can have a weak signal. In fact, even the laptop in my bedroom which is a 1 floor up and 20 feet from the router has trouble. It works but can get VERY slow. I think is it an 802.11n compliant laptop. Streaming on my laptop can be problematic in the bedroom.

My roku in the basement also has problems. Worse than what happens in the bedroom.

Will getting a much better router improve things? I'm thinking 802.11ac compliant tri band. I would love to keep the cost at $150 or so. But up to $200 is fair game.

Or should I move the router to the basement and get a repeater or two? My fear here is that one of those repeaters would be in between my home theater/PS4 gaming area and the primary router device. Honestly, if a new router would be a lot better, I'd love to move it to the basement so it is out of site. If it stays in the kitchen, I might mount it on the wall somehow.

Advice appreciated!


I think packet collision can be improved and devices will be faster. But only by about 20% or so.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I would look at the pro's and cons of each way of doing it along with the price and then make a decision about which way to go. If you don't need ac then get an AP or wireless Ethernet bridge for the devices at the far end. You did state that your wireless signal is week on the next floor to your laptop and a beam forming ac router would be able to extend your signal range depending on which model you get. If you do run a single router it will need to be centered in the structure in order to provide coverage but you can measure signal strength with a cell phone and see how well it covers your property.

 

[smitbret]

If you have been happy with what you've got then this will be plenty of router for you:

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-Arche...UTF8&qid=1447888665&sr=8-1&keywords=archer+c7

If you can get a Cat5e or Cat6 cable between floors to connect them, use the new router as a router and put the Linksys in AP mode on the other floor, keeping the AC router on the same floor as the Roku 4.

Next best option would be powerline or MoCA network extenders. Repeaters are crap and cut your bandwidth in half by default.

 

[boomhower]

I'm likely coming off as a Ubiquiti fan boy but it's a good fix for your situation IF you can run ethernet through the home. Use your router on one level and buy two Ubiquiti AC Lite's, they run $89 but tough to find at the moment. Fits your current budget. When you have some more cash buy an AC router. Since you don't have AC components at the moment have an AC hole in the coverage isn't a big deal.

 

[Beer4Me]

I'd say like most things in life, yes, but it depends...
I've been extremely pleased with my NetGear Nighthawk AC1900 router, and I've had it almost 2 years now. I NEVER have to reboot/powercycle it. It just freaking works, and it's fast. Range is excellent on the 2.4 GHz band too. It set me back $179.99 back in the day. Prior to that I only bought Asus routers, which are also pricey, but I had two of them back to back start to fail after a few months (i.e. they would get really hot then stop working). It required a powercycle weekly sometimes every other day. I've given up on Asus wireless routers for good. I did test a Trendnet AC1200 wireless router, but that turned out to be junk. I just set up a cheap TP-Link Archer V2 AC1750 router at my in-laws house, and its been very reliable. Snagged that for $90 on Amazon.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

The difference between a $50 router and a $100 router is a lot bigger than the difference between a $100 router and a $200 router. But you do tend to get better hardware at the higher cost points.

There's a very handy list here - just go down the list until you hit one in your price range.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/rankers/router/view

 

[boomerang]

The difference between a $50 router and a $100 router is a lot bigger than the difference between a $100 router and a $200 router. But you do tend to get better hardware at the higher cost points.

There's a very handy list here - just go down the list until you hit one in your price range.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/rankers/router/view

That link has been bookmarked! :thumbsup:

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Imoing going to look at the suggestions and keep an eye out for black Friday deals.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Oh, I am home now. I currently have the linksys e1000.

 

[Denithor]

Have you considered powerline adapters for the "fixed" location hardware? Typically much more stable connection than any wireless setup, awesome for gaming & etc. Then you put the router wherever needed for adequate wireless for your mobile devices and the TVs/consoles/ROKUs in the corners are linked by wire. You can even get the adapters that provide 3-4 plugs each so can run a whole group of devices off one plug.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Have you considered powerline adapters for the "fixed" location hardware? Typically much more stable connection than any wireless setup, awesome for gaming & etc. Then you put the router wherever needed for adequate wireless for your mobile devices and the TVs/consoles/ROKUs in the corners are linked by wire. You can even get the adapters that provide 3-4 plugs each so can run a whole group of devices off one plug.

I've heard about them but have a hard time trusting that they would work as desired. These things actually work well?

 

[Mushkins]

I've heard about them but have a hard time trusting that they would work as desired. These things actually work well?

I honestly never recommend them for anything but a hail-mary last resort. They are 100% dependent on the wiring in your home, they'll either work great or fail miserably and you don't know until you plug them in.

 

[smitbret]

I've heard about them but have a hard time trusting that they would work as desired. These things actually work well?

If your home is already wired for cable/satellite with coax, I have better luck with MoCA than I do with powerline:

http://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Eth...&qid=1447950674&sr=8-1&keywords=MOCA+ADAPTERS


Maybe you should consider a wireless AC bridge like I did to connect floors:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-r.../ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00BUSDVBQ

 

[brandonmatic]

If you have been happy with what you've got then this will be plenty of router for you:

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-Arche...UTF8&qid=1447888665&sr=8-1&keywords=archer+c7

I just bought the Archer C7 router yesterday. The upgrade from my Linksys e1000 n router is tremendous. I went from 15 Mbps to 90 Mbps on downloads from my cable modem.

 

[JimmiG]

I added an ASUS EA-AC87 in AP-mode to my Linksys E4200 router some time ago. I can now transfer at up to 60MB/s (480 Mb/s) when one of the clients is wired and the other wireless. I can also fully utilize my 250 down / 100 up connection over Wi-Fi, which wasn't really possible with just the E4200.

Note that the Wi-Fi adapter you use also matters. If you're using a cheap USB WiFi stick or crappy built-in WiFi, even the best AP in the world won't give you good speeds. Many cheaper laptops, tablets and phones have pretty crappy built-in Wi-Fi.

 

[Ichinisan]

Consumer-grade routers are a crapshoot. I've had cheap ones that worked great, and expensive ones that were unreliable and inconsistent.

Sometimes, a crap router became a great router when I was able to install custom firmware like DD-WRT. With a good 802.11ac router, most probably won't need to bother with custom firmware.

Currently using an Apple AirPort Extreme 802.11ac. Disappointed that it has no QoS features. If I put a large file on Dropbox, upload a video to YouTube, or plug-in an Apple devices that synchronizes with iCloud photo library, my 6mbps upload capacity gets saturated and pretty-much kills Internet service for the whole place.

[edit]

Actually, I forgot that my router is currently in AP mode because I switched to the MR DVR gateway from my TV provider. The MR DVR gateway has to provide DHCP for the LAN so the TV "player" boxes can talk back to it. I turned-off the single-band WiFi in the gateway, so it's only operating like a wired router. Unfortunately, it also has no QoS features.