Dual band or single band?

[drsnyridic]

I am choosing a new wi-fi router and I am not quite sure whether to buy a single band or a dual band.

The router is going to be used by two apartments on one floor which is 20m x 11m and is going to be placed pretty much in the middle of the floor in between those two apartments. So the signal is going to have to cover quite large area and of course there are going to be walls and furniture in its way. In the worst case the signal is going to have to reach around 12 meters away through 3 brick walls.

At the present there are these devices on the floor: two desktop PCs, three laptops, one tablet. I can imagine there will be few more in near future (probably a couple of smart-phones and a TV).

I am looking for GOOD RANGE and also RELIABILITY, "n" should be just fine.

I'm considering one of these:

Dual D-LINK DIR-845L http://www.dlink.com/al/sq/home-sol...gigabit-router-n600-with-smartbeam-technology

Single D-LINK DIR-645 http://www.dlink.com/al/sq/home-solutions/connect/routers/dir-645-wireless-n-home-router-1000

My three questions:
1) Should I buy a dual band? There is just one device in the house, that is able to connect at 5GHz at the moment. No device is ever going to be in clear line of sight - there is always going to be at least one wall between the devices and router.
2) Each of these D-LINKs has six internal antennas. DIR-645 uses all six of them for one band. I suspect DIR-845L uses three antennas for each band. Is that correct?
3) If I am correct, does that mean DIR-645 will have better range?

Thank you very much for any answers and recommendations!

 

[L&LD]

No device has six antenna for a single band at this time.

If the two apartments will be simultaneously using the router's capabilities then I would only consider a dual band router.

Given the above assumption, I would only consider an AC1900 class router.

Why? Because then each apartment would effectively have it's own wireless network and each will be up to twice as fast and responsive than having both share a single band (remember that WiFi is only available for one device at a time per band per channel and even then; it is in one direction only).

The recommendation for the AC1900 class wireless router is for their superior range and throughput in not only the 2.4GHz band, but also the 5GHz band too.


Note that this will not really be two networks (they'll be on the same IP range), but will act as if they were, when performance is the metric being measured.

 

[azazel1024]

I'd go with a nice 802.11ac router, possibly the Asus AC1200 or look at the TP-Link C7 Archer or Asus AC1700 router (the Ac66u I think it is). All three have excellent range on 5GHz and the two Asus have excellent 2.4GHz range, the C7 Archer is merely above average.

What I'd suggest doing is two SSIDs, or wireless network names. One for 5GHz that the person in the apartment where the router is located connects to and one for 2.4GHz for the person in the adjoining apartment connects to.

3 brick walls is a lot for 5GHz to go through, 802.11ac or not. Its also a lot for 2.4GHz, but it should be fine, so long as you don't mind a bit of drop off in speed by the time you are getting to the edge of the apartment. You'll have a better chance with 5GHz in the apartment that the router is sitting in.

Then you won't be stepping in each other's toes wirelessly at all. Of course if you have devices that are 2.4GHz only...then you'll HAVE to connect to the 2.4GHz network, no matter which apartment you live in.

Alternately if you are looking "cheap", then I'd get something like the TP-Link WDR1043nd. Its got excellent 2.4GHz range, but is 2.4GHz only. It has removable external antennas so if you find Wifi range unsatisfactory, you can replace them with higher gain antennas...though you might not want the router sitting on the floor, especially then. Set it at least on a small table or something to get it higher up and closer to level with the devices you'll be using, you'll have higher signal strength that way.

 

[drsnyridic]

Thank you for your advice. It would be nice to dedicate one band to one flat and have two "separate networks". The problem is, there are no devices in the house capable of using 5GHz band except one tablet right now. I know I should be thinking ahead and from that point of view it probably makes sense going dual band.

No device has six antenna for a single band at this time.

This is what D-LINK says on its webpage: "SmartBeam uses six multi-directional antennas to find and track individual devices , then focus beams of bandwidth to those devices, ensuring a seamless connection anywhere in the home."

 

[thiggins]

This is what D-LINK says on its webpage: "SmartBeam uses six multi-directional antennas to find and track individual devices , then focus beams of bandwidth to those devices, ensuring a seamless connection anywhere in the home."

You have to learn to read marketing-speak. You fell for the trick. What they don't say is how the antennas are used, i.e. three for each band.

 

[drsnyridic]

I´m not quite sure about this. D-LINK speaks about six antennas when describing both of them wireless routers DIR-845L (dual band) and DIR-645 (single band). I believe DIR-845L uses three antennas for each band. But what about DIR-645? Is there any reason to think that D-LINK has wrong description on its web?

This review speaks about six antennas as well http://www.trustedreviews.com/d-link-dir-645-smartbeam-router_Peripheral_review. But of course they could just use information provided by manufacturer when reviewing the router.

 

[thiggins]

I have to eat a little crow on this one. The DIR-645 does indeed have a six element antenna with beamforming / steering capability. It's an N300 2.4 GHz router, however. So there are only two RF chains.

The DIR-845L is an N600 dual-band router with six antennas. They all appear to be the same, so they must be dual-band. The radios have two RF chains per band.

I can't say whether all this magic results in any significant throughput or range performance improvement since I haven't tested either product.

 

[drsnyridic]

Thanks for making this clear thiggins and thank you all for your help.