recomendation for new router purchase

[3stan]

Hi, i'm newbie here. Please be kind. I wanted to purchase a new router but confused what to get after reading tons of reviews and guides. My isp provided combo router is really slow now. Here's the setup i got the isp combo router a 8 port switch all 6 pc connected by ethernet from my house mates and mine, and mobile phones each and a few tablets.

I play lots of online games and i want to get full control and monitor on my network, a good qos and decent wifi range, about $150 budget. Any recomendation? Tia

 

[stevech]

need more info, such as

• What is the ISP down/up speed you pay for?
• Is the ISP cable or DSL. Lucky if FIOS. Unlucky if U-Verse
• Is the modem you use ISP-provided? What is it? Is it an all-in-one modem/router/WiFi (hope not)
  
• Do your WiFi devices all get a good signal today?
• etc

 

[3stan]

isp: ooredoo qatar dsl
bandwith: 4mbps/0.5mbps

The modem is isp provided router-wifi all in 1 thomson( forgot the model) .too bad

I got decent signal over wifi about 3m.

 

[stevech]

those DSL speeds are slow in comparison to worldwide averages. The 0.5 up is the constraint.

Will ISP permit customer owned equipment?

WiFi - is 3m a typographical error?

 

[Nullity]

If you want good QoS, you probably need to find a wireless router that supports tomato firmware.

If you want great QoS, you probably need something like IPFire or pfSense, which are free and can installed on an old PC.

There are many options, but be careful because QoS/traffic-shaping is not easy to properly configure.

 

[3stan]

those DSL speeds are slow in comparison to worldwide averages. The 0.5 up is the constraint.

Will ISP permit customer owned equipment?

WiFi - is 3m a typographical error?

Can't do anything with the up load speeds.
As far as i know adding a router won't be a problem but replacing the isp's may cause one.
The wifi's range is not a typo, it works decently in a 3 meter range.

 

[remixedcat]

Best QoS I've used is from Cisco Meraki

 

[Trip]

Best QoS I've used is from Cisco Meraki

I'm sure many would agree, but Meraki is roughly an entire power higher in cost than the OP wants to afford...

Tia, I'd echo the suggestion of support for effective QoS, and for wifi, almost any well-reputed router should give you adequate signal strength over the first three meters (and beyond) - that's not a lot of distance, even accounting for walls/obstructions. And as long as most of your wireless clients are lighter load, then I don't see why a single-radio 2.4Ghz or perhaps 2.4 + 5Ghz dual radio N-class solution wouldn't be just fine. This will help to keep price in the $50-$150 range, and will often include gigabit ports, which will provide plenty of overhead for all your LAN traffic, and a bit of WAN future-friendliness should you upgrade ISP speed later.

In terms of picking a router, some might say Gargoyle has more effective and simpler-to-setup QoS than Tomato for low-bandwidth connections (Gargoyle's qosmon-based active congestion control vs egress-based classes/maximums in Tomato) - in my experience both have worked well. For Gargoyle, a TP-Link WDR4300 ($70) seems to be a popular go-to. For Tomato (or AdvancedTomato) an Asus RT-N66U ($120) has proven to be top-of-class as well.

 

[remixedcat]

I got my Meraki Z1 for 160 and that includes 3 years for the cloud controller license. The price of a higher end consumer router.

 

[3stan]

Tia, I'd echo the suggestion of support for effective QoS, and for wifi, almost any well-reputed router should give you adequate signal strength over the first three meters (and beyond) - that's not a lot of distance, even accounting for walls/obstructions. And as long as most of your wireless clients are lighter load, then I don't see why a single-radio 2.4Ghz or perhaps 2.4 + 5Ghz dual radio N-class solution wouldn't be just fine. This will help to keep price in the $50-$150 range, and will often include gigabit ports, which will provide plenty of overhead for all your LAN traffic, and a bit of WAN future-friendliness should you upgrade ISP speed later.

In terms of picking a router, some might say Gargoyle has more effective and simpler-to-setup QoS than Tomato for low-bandwidth connections (Gargoyle's qosmon-based active congestion control vs egress-based classes/maximums in Tomato) - in my experience both have worked well. For Gargoyle, a TP-Link WDR4300 ($70) seems to be a popular go-to. For Tomato (or AdvancedTomato) an Asus RT-N66U ($120) has proven to be top-of-class as well.

Thanks man, really appreciate it. May be i'll add those two on my pick list. Also i'm looking at the linksys ea6350 and netgear r6220, only starting to learn about this stuffs.

Regarding my bandwith, still waiting for the fiber network service to reach our area, then i'll get an upgrade