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Update House Wifi

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Ant!

New Around Here
Hi,

we bought 2 years ago a town house with 3 floors/2.5 flats (each floor approx. 80-90 m²) with some other family members. Our flat is upstairs. Since all are family, we share since a while our wifi, the problem is the infrastructure is kind of heritage of when all lived in small individual flats.

With 5 adults, 2 still small kids (growing, and possible more in the future), 3 TVs with Netflix, a few laptops & mobile phones, a play station and my squeezebox music streaming system, our wifi reaches its limits. The main router is in the flat in the middle (ground floor), not optimal in the middle but on one side of the house, facing the garden. Still, in the garden, just behind one wall and only approx. 3m from this router away, music streaming (to a Raspberry Pi with a large external antenna-USB-dongle) stucks from time to time (increased already the buffer size), same to our kitchen, just upstairs from the "main router". The music server with the harddrive is upstairs in our flat, in a room in the opposite side of the house (I guess approx. 10m away, but through some walls), I know, not optimal. Wifi has with the laptops in the same room, our living room, also sometimes some hiccups, while it is usually fast and reliable (my laptop says right now in this room 63% reception). This is more or less the most far away from the main router. And I guess these hiccups mess up my music streaming... Not often, but they do occur.

The area to cover isn't that huge in the end, and I hope with a few smaller updates we can improve the whole wifi quite a bit. Here is what we have running at the moment:

- "Main router", connected to the world: An older Apple Airport Express. I guess this isn't optimal, since it has no external antennas. Here I see the best chance to improve. Maybe we can still use it as a repeater (already don't like its windows/mac only setup software...)

- As our TV is smart, but no wifi build in, I use an old TP-Link WR941ND as a receiver (not a standard function, I installed gargoyle on it). Since this is in the same room and more central then the music server, it is connected to this as well. 3 antennas is anyways better then the one antenna on the tiny pc which runs the server. This one could work as a repeater, but not really at the place it is now.

- An old Encore ENHWI-N router: Since I could not find an alternative firmware like DD-WRT for it to run it as a repeater, it is unplugged and probably of no use anymore.

- Recently got a Linksys E1200 "to throw away". Managed to install DD-WRT on it which seems to work fine, still have to figure out how to configure it as a repeater, but I guess it will work.

-> What's your thoughts?

I guess updating the main router with a modern router, with more antennas? Any ideas of a nice modern router for quite some traffic and larger area? I was reading a bit about routers, not 100% what would be the best. I guess beamforming, even though working only with ac, might be nice to have? Something like the Archer C8? Or is it worth to go a category higher, into AC1900 like Linksys EA6900 or D-Link DIR 880L?

Some of the devices in the house could use the ac-standard, others only n. In the neighborhood are a couple of other networks (count 12 right now), but most of them weak, ours still the strongest. So I am not really afraid of too much interferences, saw busier spots.

Beside the main router update, I guess using as much as possible the existing devices as repeaters, if there are problems. Of course somewhere midway...

PS: I guess the US legislation of locking down the router's firmware will effect also Canada, since only one version will be build? Are these locked down models already in the shops, or only from June 2, or just manufactured June 2 and a bit later in the stores?
 
Best to wire the additional routers and use them as AP's instead of repeaters (each one will cut your network's effective bandwidth in half).

Routers bought today may or may not have the 'locked' firmware installed. Depends on the specific stores supply chain and isn't anything we can predict for you.

Buying anything less than the RT-AC56U or higher (sweet spot is the RT-AC68U right now) is just spending your cash for nothing. AC class routers improve all network devices; even 'N' class ones. See the article in the main site addressing this very issue below.

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/does-an-ac-router-improve-n-device-performance.19533/
 
Thanks for your answer!

Buying anything less than the RT-AC56U or higher (sweet spot is the RT-AC68U right now) is just spending your cash for nothing.

I just check, the RT-AC56U is an AC1200 router, the RT-AC68U an AC1900. Given that the Archer C7 and C8 are AC1750, I guess these would be fine? Prices here are for the RT-AC56U and the C7 the same, C8 slightly more, and RT-AC68U much more...

Wiring the other routers might be not super easy, but something we have to check...
 
Thanks for your answer!



I just check, the RT-AC56U is an AC1200 router, the RT-AC68U an AC1900. Given that the Archer C7 and C8 are AC1750, I guess these would be fine? Prices here are for the RT-AC56U and the C7 the same, C8 slightly more, and RT-AC68U much more...

Wiring the other routers might be not super easy, but something we have to check...


You're welcome.

I would be hard pressed to agree with you that the other routers you're considering are at even the RT-AC56U's quality, when all aspects are considered.

I believe you get what you pay for. The RT-AC68U, RMerlin's contributions and Asus' product philosophy are a combo that you ignore at your own peril. Even if you save a few bucks.
 

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