Need Help Selecting Longest Range Router

[davidahn]

Home: 5400 sq ft 2 story home with street-level entrance to main living area on 2nd floor
completely open floor plan except master bedroom, only exterior 2x6 & stucco wall
pool on first floor wifi Zodiaq controller connected via wifi
Cat 5e cable in most rooms
Internet: 300/30 cable modem, speed tests at 345/25 wired
Previous setup: WRT1900AC on second floor, about 60 ft from pool controller, TP-Link Archer C7 on first floor
Current setup: Google Wifi 3-pack, main unit in theater room (1st floor, buried in layers of walls), one in kitchen (2nd), one in master bedroom (2nd), all 1000BT backhauls

The WRT1900 got full rated WAN speed with wireless AC within about 10-15 feet, but even about 35-40 feet with no walls, down to about 290 Mbps. I thought I would try a mesh network, so I bought the Google Wifi 3-pack, expecting better coverage and performance, but it's WORSE, down to 60-100 Mbps now within a few feet of any AP. Also, network testing on the Google Wifi app with 1000BT backhauls only gets about 130-160 Mbps. But at this point the worst part is my pool controller (Zodiaq iAqualink v1) no longer connects to my wifi network.

So I was going to go back to using regular wifi routers in AP mode, but this time researching the longest 2.4GHz range. So on CNET the king of long range 2.4 GHz is the Asus RT-AC68U, head and shoulders above all other routers at 100 ft. But on SNB it doesn't test out that stellar. So how do I interpret SNB's attenuation vs. other sites' distance? How do I select the best long range 2.4 GHz router?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Adam G620]

Are you sure that you have the GWF set up properly? Mine are hardwired as well and get ~920mbps down wired (through two pucks) and 350-550mbps down wireless. I'm getting an Onhub which I Daisy chain to one of the satellites.

The route on mine is ATT modem/router (wifi off) -> GWF puck -> 8 Port gigabit switch -> GWF satellite pucks

 

[thiggins]

Go to Router Ranker, set Rank selector to 2.4 GHz Range.

 

[davidahn]

Are you sure that you have the GWF set up properly? Mine are hardwired as well and get ~920mbps down wired (through two pucks) and 350-550mbps down wireless. I'm getting an Onhub which I Daisy chain to one of the satellites.

The route on mine is ATT modem/router (wifi off) -> GWF puck -> 8 Port gigabit switch -> GWF satellite pucks

Thanks, Adam. I did have mine wired weird:
- one Cat 6 cable from modem to the GW
- another Cat 6 cable from modem to switch
- switch connected via in-wall Cat 5e (preexisting) to 2 other secondary pucks

Reconfigured:
- one Cat 6 cable to the main GW puck
- one Cat 6 cable to the switch
- switch connected via in-wall Cat 5e (preexisting) to 2 other secondary pucks
- rebooted all pucks

Results (I don't know if it was the wiring change or the reboot):
- my iMac (2 feet from a GW puck) now tests at 320/25 (I could plug in a Cat 6 cable but the cable would be an eyesore)
- Google Wifi app still shows 160-190/25 with its in-app bandwidth testing (This always happened, but hard-wired did 340 Mbps and 802.11ac connections at close range did 300-350 Mbps)
- my MacBook Pro (retina 2013 core i7 2.6 GHz) only gets 200-205 Mbps down (802.11n, 5 GHz, Tx 300 Mbps)

I just realized my MacBook Pro is not connecting via 802.11ac, it is connecting via 802.11n but over 5 GHz. It refuses to connect to the Google Wifi via 802.11ac. It was connecting to my WRT1900AC using AC, because I could get 340-350 Mbps when I was close to the router.

 

[davidahn]

Go to Router Ranker, set Rank selector to 2.4 GHz Range.

Hi Tim, thanks so much for that. So the Synology RT2600ac is #1 in 2.4 GHz range by your test method; and I know Cnet uses actual distance rather than using attenuation, so I would expect some differences. But why is it SO different from Cnet's results, which show Synology's 2.4 GHz as 146.6 Mbps at close range and 81.8 Mbps at 100 ft, and the Asus RT-AC68U as 225 and 211 Mbps respectively? Does the RT-AC68U have a more powerful radio or more power focused in the horizontal plane? or is this a test error on Cnet's part?

Also, Tim, I can't get the Router Chart to work when I select an attenuation level; I get no results. I tried it with Safari and Chrome on Mac OS 10.12.4.

 

[davidahn]

Update, I just took my MBP out to where the Zodiac iAqualink is, about 40 feet from the Google Wifi puck through a window, and it has decent signal, about 60-70% signal strength, 40 Mbps on my laptop. I checked the status lights on the iAqualink and they're all dead. The problem may not even be the wifi signal after all.

Still, I'm wondering if I should get an RT-AC68U just as an AP for the 2.4 GHz band and a different AP for faster wireless AC, in preparation for Cox to keep increasing their bandwidth. In the 5 years I've lived in this house, they've increased from 50 Mbps to 75 to 150 to 300 Mbps for their "Ultimate" tier internet. We're testing at about 350 Mbps now, so one more doubling will pretty much bring us up to par with Google Fiber (I've seen reports of 700 Mbps). At this point I will need a newer computer to take full advantage of the latest 3x3 and 4x4 MIMO APs.