Hi,
I'm shopping for a new router for my apartment, which has a lot of neighbors with WiFi. I believe nobody has any with 5Ghz (details).
What I have:
- I usually have 1 wired (gigabit) desktop computer. It is often used as the media dump too, thus other devices will SAMBA to it to access the files.
- I have 1 laptop which has a dual-stream built-in 802.11n adapter (it connect at 300Mbsp on the 5Ghz and seems to only connect at 150Mbs on the 2.4Ghz (might be because of the router, not sure).
- I have one cellphone and one tablet which seem to connect at 65Mbps or so max on the WiFi.
- I might sometimes get 1 or 2 extra desktop computers booted that will be on the wired network and maybe 1 rarely on the Wifi. I might also get friends over that will have a cellphone or a laptop that they'll want to plug on the Wifi.
- I don't have a smart tv
What I do:
- View movies, etc, from all devices that are either on the wired desktop computer via SAMBA, or on sites that have a Flash Player (not real streaming) and I surf the web, download things on torrents and surf the web more...I sometimes also look at real streams. All this can happen to be done multiple devices at the same time.
Those Wifi connection speeds I've mentioned have been obtained with two N900 AP routers I've bought, but that I can bring back within a couple of weeks.
The two AP I've tested are the Linksys EA4500 and the D-Link DIR-857.
If I understand well, those AP's are overkill, right ? Since I don't have any device that has support for 3 streams, my devices that have 2 streams or 1 stream will never ever be able to take any advantage from having a AP with 3 streams, or am I wrong ?
Could a 3 stream AP offer better stability or range for my 2 and 1 stream devices ? Or could the availability of 3 radio/3 streams permit the AP to better balance multiple devices on the same frequency by somehow using one stream for a mobile and 2 streams for a laptop ?
I do need dual band, because I want to have the laptop alone on the 5ghz (but please don't bother about that detail when replying, except on a side note comment). Also, I do need gigabit on the wire.
The DIR-857 has USB 3.0, but I'm not sure if I'll actually plug in a external drive vs having the drive on that always on desktop computer which is on the gigabit wire.
From my simple tests, maybe the Linksys has more stable WiFi Speed connection, but that might have been caused by the channel it was on. So we can put that aside.
The reason I'm asking about those 3 streams/3 radios is that I'm sort of debating if I should simply downgrade my purchase to a TP-Link WDT3600 which has dual band, 2x2 (N600) which should, I'm assuming, offer the exact same network stability.
So I'd love to get some feedback about those 3 possible routers: D-Link DIR-857, Linksys EA4500 and TP-Link WDR3600.
Any other details regarding what I should think of would be appreciated.
Thanks
I'm shopping for a new router for my apartment, which has a lot of neighbors with WiFi. I believe nobody has any with 5Ghz (details).
What I have:
- I usually have 1 wired (gigabit) desktop computer. It is often used as the media dump too, thus other devices will SAMBA to it to access the files.
- I have 1 laptop which has a dual-stream built-in 802.11n adapter (it connect at 300Mbsp on the 5Ghz and seems to only connect at 150Mbs on the 2.4Ghz (might be because of the router, not sure).
- I have one cellphone and one tablet which seem to connect at 65Mbps or so max on the WiFi.
- I might sometimes get 1 or 2 extra desktop computers booted that will be on the wired network and maybe 1 rarely on the Wifi. I might also get friends over that will have a cellphone or a laptop that they'll want to plug on the Wifi.
- I don't have a smart tv
What I do:
- View movies, etc, from all devices that are either on the wired desktop computer via SAMBA, or on sites that have a Flash Player (not real streaming) and I surf the web, download things on torrents and surf the web more...I sometimes also look at real streams. All this can happen to be done multiple devices at the same time.
Those Wifi connection speeds I've mentioned have been obtained with two N900 AP routers I've bought, but that I can bring back within a couple of weeks.
The two AP I've tested are the Linksys EA4500 and the D-Link DIR-857.
If I understand well, those AP's are overkill, right ? Since I don't have any device that has support for 3 streams, my devices that have 2 streams or 1 stream will never ever be able to take any advantage from having a AP with 3 streams, or am I wrong ?
Could a 3 stream AP offer better stability or range for my 2 and 1 stream devices ? Or could the availability of 3 radio/3 streams permit the AP to better balance multiple devices on the same frequency by somehow using one stream for a mobile and 2 streams for a laptop ?
I do need dual band, because I want to have the laptop alone on the 5ghz (but please don't bother about that detail when replying, except on a side note comment). Also, I do need gigabit on the wire.
The DIR-857 has USB 3.0, but I'm not sure if I'll actually plug in a external drive vs having the drive on that always on desktop computer which is on the gigabit wire.
From my simple tests, maybe the Linksys has more stable WiFi Speed connection, but that might have been caused by the channel it was on. So we can put that aside.
The reason I'm asking about those 3 streams/3 radios is that I'm sort of debating if I should simply downgrade my purchase to a TP-Link WDT3600 which has dual band, 2x2 (N600) which should, I'm assuming, offer the exact same network stability.
So I'd love to get some feedback about those 3 possible routers: D-Link DIR-857, Linksys EA4500 and TP-Link WDR3600.
Any other details regarding what I should think of would be appreciated.
Thanks
