Router burliness required for busy home network?

[Sushifiend3000]

Are 3 desktop PCs, 3 notebooks, 2 Tivos, 2 voip phones, and a game console (plus my phone if I'm on the john and just have to have my Champions League football highlights right now) all using the network at the same time considered a heavy load for a consumer grade router? Is there a particular model that would be better suited to handle this amount of network activity without choking? Only the voip phones would be connected by ethernet, the rest are wireless.

Peak usage would be at night when everyone's home, with audio and video streaming, online gaming, intranetwork file transfers, and web browsing going on at once. Thanks.

 

[InlineFive]

What are the upload and download speeds on your internet connection? Do you have any idea about how many simultaneous connections you peak at? Does anyone on the network have P2P programs running?

I'd wager it would be a bit much for your average Joe/Jane router but it might turn out to be okay.

 

[Sushifiend3000]

Cable, 6Mb down/1Mb up. No P2P programs.

At some point between 7 and 10pm on a weeknight, it's not unlikely that all of the connections I mentioned could be active at once, so... the number of simultaneous connections could peak at 12. The probability goes up on the weekends.

 

[InlineFive]

I'm not 100% what to suggest then. If you're current setup works fine why not stay with it.

 

[Sushifiend3000]

This is a new setup. We are merging two households under one roof.

We're not launching missiles or tracking satellites or anything like that, but we do love our internet, and when things slow down people get downright irritable. The D-Link I currently use in my house reboots itself when it gets too busy. I would very much like to avoid that scenario.

 

[JackMDS]

There is No miracles, some laws of physics has to be maintained, if a total input to a system 100W you cannot get out 200W.

Get two Internet accounts and buy a Dual WAN Router.

 

[InlineFive]

I don't necessarily think that two internet connections is necessary. Now if one person is downloading a huge file that chokes the connection people will get annoyed. Otherwise I think the complications of effectively setting up two WANs is unnecessary.

Right now I say get a Dlink Gaming Router and see how it works for you.

 

[skyking]

For starters, do everything you can to get some of that stuff off the radio. Run some wires, locate the router near the desktops, whatever it takes. There is only so much a single radio can do.

 

[robmurphy]

I have a netgear WGT624 and run 4 PCs, and 1 - 3 laptops off that. I used wired connections for all the connections, except 1 of the laptops. The service I'm on is 10 Mbs down, and 500kbs up. (10 Meg service from VirginMedia). One of the PCs runs P2P between 20kBs and 400 KBs. The P2P did slow up the internet access until the cable modem was replaced. I've had the netgear WGT624 for about 2 years and the only problems I have had with it are wireless.

The wireless problems were due to the number of other local wireless networks. Its been much better recently as many of them have gone. This is probably due to the fact that many students live in my area, and most have gone back home.

I would cable the PCs, the tivos, and the games console, and that would leave the 3 laptops and your phone over the wireless connections. If you are concerend about the load on the router why not invest in a cheap 10/100 switch. I bought a generic 16 port one of these for about £15.00 about 1 year back and it works fine. All the router does is provide the wireless and route the internet traffic. Swapping files and streaming video will be much quicker than over wireless.

You may find that the VoIP quality will suffer, as the traffic for these phones needs to be given prority. I would use the switch on the router for the VoIP phones, and the other switch for the rest of the wired connections. You should also be aware that each VoIP phone call will use about 10% of your upstream bandwidth, assuming you are using G711.

If you must have everthing wireless you could fit another wireless access point so some of the connections are one the router wireless, and the others are on the second access point.


Rob Murphy.

 

[InlineFive]

After rereading the OP I think that you should move most of your machines over to ethernet. Wireless is a terrible transportation medium for the amount of traffic you are talking about.

 

[sswingle]

Get the desktops, game console, and voip lines wired.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: Sushifiend3000
This is a new setup. We are merging two households under one roof.

We're not launching missiles or tracking satellites or anything like that, but we do love our internet, and when things slow down people get downright irritable. The D-Link I currently use in my house reboots itself when it gets too busy. I would very much like to avoid that scenario.

the dlinks i had before would shut down and reset themselves on a whim if i tossed too much at it at one time also. if my kids were watching SoaD videos on youtube while my exwife was playing popcap games all at the same time i was trying to play WoW, it would shut down. and that was only 5 conns. i replaced it with linksys and havent had the problem since. i still run 4 desktops and my wireless stuff, so its conceivable to have WoW, console game and 4 people running in the lab all at the same time with no probs. i also have 12mb cable, however relevant that is. i dont think the dlink reset issue is due to net speed, i think its a load handling on the lan side.