New Router Help, traffic control required.

[thegrayson]

At the moment I have an aging Belkin 802.11G router, it was never great, and has made a habit of dropping the connection a couple of times a week. I have to desktops, one laptop, mp3 streamer on the stereo, printer and Wii all running as wireless clients. After a recent upgrade by my ISP to a 10Mb connection I noticed that the connection on my desktops had barely improved. After a little digging I noticed that with a cable to the router I had no trouble getting 10Mbs, on the laptop wireless(mini pci) 7Mbs, and on the desktops a shocking 3Mbs. I'll blame that on the USB wireless adapters being used. They are both Shuttle XPCs and so lacking in expansion slots. So some upgrading is required.

I would like to add a Draft N router to the mix with new Draft N pci cards in both desktops and I plan to keep the Belkin router as an AP for the other G clients. So far I have looked at the D-Link DIR 655 and the Sitecom Wireless 300N XR Gigabit Gaming Router. Sadly as a new product I can't find any reviews of the Sitecom as yet.

My query lies in how to handle the mixed internet traffic in the house. My significant other browses and downloads(a lot), I browse, game, game and voip, and occassionally download. To date if I'm gaming everything else slows down, if either of us are downloading everything else can grind to a halt. Which router will allow us to browse at decent speeds regardless of gaming or downloading? Or what features should I look for?
What I have read of QoS so far indicates that it manages upstream traffic, so what manages downstream?

Thanks.

 

[thiggins]

Don't be so quick to blame the USB PCI NICs. It could just be the location of the systems using them. What sort of distances and home construction are we talking about?

Yes, QoS in consumer routers is upstream only because it typically has much less bandwidth than the upstream connection. The Ubicom StreamEngine auto Qos used in D-Link and other routers works nicely, but only upstream.

If you want downlink QoS, you need to use small-business routers. I'll be doing an article on this soon and will be checking out the previously-reviewed Linksys RVL200 and RV042. They require manual setting, but work in both directions.

 

[thegrayson]

Thanks for the prompt reply. The adapter in the laptop picks up a strong signal regardless of where in the house I use it. The router resides in my living room beside the cable modem. One pc is in the next room, the other is in the room directly above the living room. House construction is fairly standard, block walls on the ground floor then dry lined partition walls upstairs. I don't know the dimensions of the rooms off hand but the house is your average 3 up, 3 down. Similar construction didn't really hinder me in my last house but that was with one pc and a 1Mb connection.

Is QoS the only option?

 

[thiggins]

Is QoS the only option?

Of course not. There is also the option of not trying to do two bandwidth hogging things at the same time!

Also, buying more bandwidth, if that's an option. You first need to see if the problem is uplink or downlink. You can do that by monitoring bandwidth use with NetMeter.

 

[tipstir]

Of course not. There is also the option of not trying to do two bandwidth hogging things at the same time!

Also, buying more bandwidth, if that's an option. You first need to see if the problem is uplink or downlink. You can do that by monitoring bandwidth use with NetMeter.

Wow these are the old Du Meters, I'll try this out again now as NetMeter see what I get.