Please help pick a router for RoadRunner Internet in Hawaii.

[Demiurgic]

Hello.
Rural Hawaii barely has cell phone service all over the Island, let alone fast internet, and many people live in paradise without internet faster than 56k. The tradeoff is acceptable, overall.

We (our family) have one of the faster connections here with a paltry 5 mb download and 1mb upload speed with Oceanic's Road Runner.

I'd like your help in working with with such a meager connection and picking a router which best serves our purposes, such as:

~ Lots of people around our new place have Time Warner's Road Runner internet and perhaps it's wise to get a router with a frequency that is not common? I don't know much about this so please advice.

~ I'd like to print wireless on a bluetooth enabled wireless printer. Also, We have a warehouse which is quite large so I'd like our devices to be able to connect inside the warehouse. So decent range is important.
However, top achievable speed, overall reliability and a steady connection are much more important.

~DO I need to create a Wireless Access Point for devices or is the wireless router itself an access point for other devices like ipad, iphone, etc?

~ I'd like to stream netflix.

~$100 tops seems like a good budget but I'd reconsider if a wireless router really stood out for our needs

I think that does it, Thanks for your input!
Aloha,
demi

 

[tipstir]

Ahola!

My retirement Island Paradise, sounds like it does have some short comings in the ISP and wireless.
Bluetooth (PAN) range has to be close by or right on top of you.

So what do you really have going on? Doesn't sound like you have anything yet? Will this be in house, or APT?

 

[thiggins]

Any current design router will handle your ISP speed just fine.

How large is your warehouse? What is the outer wall construction? Are there inner walls?

Where will you put your router and how far away from the warehouse will it be?

 

[Demiurgic]

At tipstir -
Which part will you retire in Kona or Hilo side?
No, nothing going on yet. Still looking for direction with picking the right router. This router will be in my office (at home) next to the warehouse.
Sorry, I don't know what APT means.

At thiggins -

How large is your warehouse?
About 50 square feet.

What is the outer wall construction? Are there inner walls?
Metal siding, and there is a sound absorbing room inside (a room with a thick coating of what looks like mashed egg cartons, sprayed on the wall for sound absorbtion when heavy machinary is in use) -
I do not NEED a signal to come these thick sound absorbing walls but it would be cool if I could so I could use an ipod touch to make skype calls if the wireless signal is good enough.

Where will you put your router and how far away from the warehouse will it be?
Warehouse is about 15-20 feet away from office.

The main area is the office. Router will be next to a wireless printer (probably a Canon, since we're still looking for one) and a bluetooth enabled Sony Vaio computer
I hope to pack our orders, print fedEX labels, answer emails and faxes and do it all in a wire free enviroment while a netflix movie streams in the background in a smooth non-choppy kind of way.

I agree that most routers will be fine since our speed is not too much, however, I'd like to get a long lasting, and stable wireless router which has decent range.

What do you guys think is a good choice for me here?


I found a fewthat looked good, from your reviews -
EnGenius ESR 9850 or 7750
ASUS - RT N13U


from elsewhere -
Cisco/Linksys - WRT 160 N RM
Cisco/Linksys - WRT 54 G2
SMC WGBR 12- N
Cisco E ...

THANKS!

 

[tipstir]

APT apartment. Well large island Hilo. I really don't know which one since I have never been there yet?

Ahola again! If you're in house then any of the wireless routers tested here on SNB should do the trick. Main players are TEW-673GRU, WNDR-3700 and ESR-9850 or ESR-9855 (this one we don't know yet since only one users here has one) and E3000 from Cisco Linksys.

 

[Demiurgic]

Thank you Tipstir, those are ample choices.
I'll wait for thiggins reply and make a decision.

The EnGenius 9850 looks appealing in the performance to price ratio aspect.

However, will I be able to use a wireless/bluetooth printer with it since it says " No USB print serving or NAS sharing". What does 'NOT WiFi certified' mean?
Lastly, what does a network storage solution entail?

Thanks for entertaining the noob and all his questions!

Hilo is big and also VERY small. You can bump into the same faces two -three times daily in various places. Please come visit and be ready for a slow pace, everyone moves slower here, REALLY slow at times especially if you are a Kava drinker like myself

Aloha Tipstir!

 

[thiggins]

The warehouse's metal walls will severely weaken your signal in the warehouse. You may not get a usable signal with any router.

If you want to try, the router in the house should be in a room closest to the warehouse if possible.

If it doesn't work, I'd just run an Ethernet cable out there and set up an access point.

However, will I be able to use a wireless/bluetooth printer with it since it says " No USB print serving or NAS sharing". What does 'NOT WiFi certified' mean?
Lastly, what does a network storage solution entail?

No USB print serving or NAS sharing means that the router itself doesn't have a USB port that supports those features. Some products do. Any Wi-Fi printer will work with your router.

Not Wi-Fi Certified means just that, the product was not submitted for testing and certification. This means that you could have interoperability problems with some Wi-Fi devices.

Network storage can be as simple as a computer set up to share folders or a dedicated product like a NAS.

Finally, you could have problems with wireless Netflix streaming with a 5 Mbps ISP connection and intermittent simultaneous other wireless use. Netflix is pretty smart about matching its stream quality to the available bandwidth. But you might not like the resolution it picks or it may need to constantly stop and restart the stream depending on your web browsing and other network use.

The Engenius will let you experiment with using QoS to attempt to control this. It allows you to control both down and upstream bandwidth by client and application.

 

[Demiurgic]

Gentlemen, a sincere thanks for your time and dedication to this field. I am an ardent admirer of people who pick a line of work, and do it well.

And I'm sure that the wireless router business does not have more than a sparse few who are are dedicated to such indepth research as you are.

I will be ordering an EnGenius ESR 9850 thanks to your inputs!

Great job!
demi

 

[tipstir]

Demi, can't be any slower than in South Florida! I'll take you up on your offer! Ahola!