Home Router Upgrade advice

I currently have a WISP (Wireless ISP) that is giving me some troubles, but I also think some of my troubles might be router related too. I have some testing via wired, and directly the POE injector and found some differences but not a ton. I have a Asus RT-N16 that’s a little over 5 years old and has been running a build of the Shibby Tomato firmware forever. It’s generally pretty reliable but wireless performance has never been great, especially when streaming video. I have tried tweaking settings and had it to the point of mostly working. However after 5 years and what seems like an increasing amount of trouble I am about ready to throw in the towel and replace the hardware and relocate it a bit by moving it to a little more central location in the basement.

I mostly have 2.4ghz devices right now, and a rough estimate is under 10 wifi devices most days in a ranch style house approximately 1800sq ft. I have a couple of 5ghz AC devices and will probably add more once I have a router that supports it.

My list of want’s for the new router is improved wireless performance. 5ghz in my neighborhood is not being used from a scan with my phone, so having that is a plus at least for the devices that can use it. Improved 2.4ghz is important too. I would also like to setup a VPN server on the router for when I travel. I don’t plan to use it a lot but it would be good to have on hotel wifi etc. So a dynamicDNS like service on it would be good too since my IP will change periodically. USB Support is probably good but not critical. I should probably mess with this some on a new router with decent performance. 3rd party firmware support is a plus for me. While I generally don’t use all the extra features its nice to have, and the security tends to be better it seems.

So what I have been looking at.
Asus AC68u (Or P Variant)
Right now the refurbished version of this router is on sale for $120 for the P variant. This is a good deal as it’s normally $180. Not a huge fan of refurbished but for the savings ok. Performance for the price this one might be too hard to pass up.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Pro...228&cm_sp=
This router ranks favorably all over, especially over at here at SNB in the AC1900 category http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/to...900/rev8/6 3rd party firmware of various flavors is available and seems to work well. Router has beamforming although most tests of the technology says it doesn’t matter much.

TP-Link Archer C7,C8,C9
Money is about the same but for a new router. The Wirecutter loves the C7 as it’s their top pick. SNB is not a huge fan of the C9. It’s performance just was not as good as it’s peers. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wi...ed?start=2 For the C9 it doesn’t look like 3rd party firmware is as good, C7 has pretty good support and seems to be the crowd favorite for the under $100 price range.

The Google Router
It’s expensive but it’s features look tempting. Lack of lan ports while frustrating is easy to fix with a switch. Hard to jump on board with nothing being tested much yet.

Thoughts/comments/other suggestions?

The google router will trump the rest with its VPN performance however it is still in beta.

What router you choose should depend on the kind of VPN throughput that you want. TP-link C7 and C9 use MIPS so have really bad VPN throughput compared to the ARM based CPU variants.

System Error Message said:

The google router will trump the rest with its VPN performance however it is still in beta.

What router you choose should depend on the kind of VPN throughput that you want. TP-link C7 and C9 use MIPS so have really bad VPN throughput compared to the ARM based CPU variants.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. Not looking for any crazy through put most hotel/public wifi is pretty poor. Looking at the VPN for security more than performance. I would say if it did 5x2 or more that would be fine.

Any thoughts on the ASUS I listed above in terms of VPN? I have read they are easier to setup initially.

System Error Message said:

The google router will trump the rest with its VPN performance however it is still in beta.

What router you choose should depend on the kind of VPN throughput that you want. TP-link C7 and C9 use MIPS so have really bad VPN throughput compared to the ARM based CPU variants.

Click to expand...

The C9 is an ARM-based router. The BCM4709 is a dual-core ARM CPU

@microchip, making a microchip correction... ahhaha... haha...ha. hehe? Sorry, couldn't resist.

@OP: my go-to anecdote for use cases like this starts with an all-in-one purchased mainly for wifi abilities -- Apple AEBS if you swing that way, or AC68U or R7000 with Merlin/xVortex or AdvancedTomato. If everything seems up to snuff, beautiful, you're done. If core routing disappoints, then you drop in a legit wired router (UBNT, 'Tik, etc.) and convert the all-in-one to an access point. Solves people's issues 90% of the time.

Out of your choices here, I would suggest that the google router is last (if you want them to spy on you, they could at least supply the router for free), TP-Link is only slightly better and the refurbished RT-AC68P may be your best value if it proves to be a good example (of a refurb).

The reason I rank them like that is because of the Asus and RMerlin support and firmware you will have for the next few years.

Another consideration is a new RT-AC56U (on sale in the $100 range) which has a slightly slower cpu vs. the '68P and only two antennae vs. three, but otherwise identical.

The only way you'll know is to buy a couple of routers or more and test them out within the return period. Keep the one that gives you the most bang for the buck.

L&LD said:

Out of your choices here, I would suggest that the google router is last (if you want them to spy on you, they could at least supply the router for free), TP-Link is only slightly better and the refurbished RT-AC68P may be your best value if it proves to be a good example (of a refurb).

The reason I rank them like that is because of the Asus and RMerlin support and firmware you will have for the next few years.

Another consideration is a new RT-AC56U (on sale in the $100 range) which has a slightly slower cpu vs. the '68P and only two antennae vs. three, but otherwise identical.

The only way you'll know is to buy a couple of routers or more and test them out within the return period. Keep the one that gives you the most bang for the buck.

Click to expand...

while google spies on you through router and software, china spies on you through tp-link and the nsa spies on you through netgear and dlink.


VPN throughput depends on the type of VPN you use. On MIPS based you can get like 30Mb/s for PPTP but a few Mb/s for other types. For ARM based PPTP can achieve up to 100Mb/s with other types getting below 50Mb/s

System Error Message said:

while google spies on you through router and software, china spies on you through tp-link and the nsa spies on you through netgear and dlink.


VPN throughput depends on the type of VPN you use. On MIPS based you can get like 30Mb/s for PPTP but a few Mb/s for other types. For ARM based PPTP can achieve up to 100Mb/s with other types getting below 50Mb/s

Click to expand...

What about Asus? Any spying done with them?

L&LD said:

What about Asus? Any spying done with them?

Click to expand...

ASUS is from Taiwan which is one of those countries that doesnt do well in spying on others however it is quite likely that any networking gear sold in the US will have a backdoor in their firmware. There is also a requirement for ISPs and the like around american continent to be able to provide information such as CALEA but i believe there are even deeper ones now.

If you dont want a backdoor install a firmware that is fully open sourced like openWRT or buy the device from another country/source and bring it back with you. Its really hard these days to get a device that doesnt spy on you so the question is who do you prefer to spy on you.

Also consider the Linksys EA8500, you might be surprised how good it is.

Trip said:

@microchip, making a microchip correction... ahhaha... haha...ha. hehe? Sorry, couldn't resist.

Click to expand...

Had to, it's a different platform/architecture and that CPU is a lot more capable than a MIPS used in previous models of the Archer router line

I know; I was just making a joke as a play on words. I completely agree with the actual correction, of course.

Tin foil hattery aside (D-link is taiwanese btw), its hard to wrong with Netgear and Asus. I tried the TP-Link Archer C5 and C7 and honestly it was really underwhelming. They could barely punch through two indoor walls (drywall, no insulation), the 5GHz is pretty weak with the 2.7 being a little bit better. They're cheap and they work pretty well in terms of stability, but in terms of real world speeds and range, you really get what you pay for when it comes to the C7 and C5. Their 3rd party firmware support isn't that great either. The V2 of the C7 and V1 of the C5 support DDWRT and openWRT, but no tomato, however even on custom firmware it was pretty meh. The Ac68U is a pretty good deal especially if you can get it for $120 or less (Ive seen it go for as low as $80 for "like new" and factory refurbished units) and the range is much much better. It basically supports every firmware under the sun so if anything you have options, and it can do VPN well enough for the average user imo. The vpn is the achilles heel of your requirements. There are many cheaper routers that work very well in every aspect but sucks at vpn. The R7000 from netgear can also be occasionally found for really good prices if you lurk newegg and amazon and ebay for a while. Alternatively, if you are worried about the NSA backdooring you router and happen to have an old pc, you can try pfSense and chuck in a few cheap gigabit pcie cards and wireless adapters. Works for many hobbyists might work for you.