router & AP vs. wireless router & switch

[rhodesengr]

I am looking to upgrade the wireless and wired network in my house. I currently have an old Linksys wireless router with four wired ports. It is located in my "home office". The wireless part serves the rest of the house. I want to end up with 8 or more wired ports in my home office and a much stronger wireless signal throughout my house. If I could find a good wireless router with 8 ports, my dilema would be over. However, it seems that the newest and fastest (at location f) routers only have four ports. So I could add a switch to one of the ports to increase the wired ports. Or, I could start with an 8 (or 16 port) wired router) and connect an access point to one of the ports. There seems to be fewer AP's reviewed here and the ones I've seen are not as fast (at location f) as the best four port wireless routers. Also, would not the total wireless throughput be limited by the one port on the wired router? If I use one of newer 4 port wireless routers (like the E4200) and increase wired ports with a switch, I might be limiting the performance of the wired devices by choking them through one port on the router. Hopefully other people have thought about this issue and can offer some advice. here are some specific questions:

1. Is there an AP that has long range performance as good as the E4200? The ASUS RT-N56U has AP mode but is not as good as the E4200 at long range while the E4200 does have AP mode. None of the AP specific devices seem to have the long range performance of the E4200.

2. From a network design perspective is it generally better to go wired router with an AP or wireless router with a switch.

3. is there a good long range wireless router with 8 ports? Netgear has some wireless firewalls with 8 ports ports but I can't find review with long distance performance comparisons.

Note that I am not trying to be cheap here. I am willing use to small business grade products if that helps.

 

[stevech]

You'll be best served by using a WIFi router and one or more access points (APs). The not well understood issue is that the transmitted signal from your client devices/PCs is the limiting factor rather than the WiFi router/AP's signal strength.

Place an AP on the far end of the house or upstairs and connect it to the WiFi router. To connect, either use cat5 cable or a cable-alternative such as HomePNA or MoCA (see the forum here on those). Avoid a WiFi repeater (WDS).

I've not seen an 8 port WiFi router - but all you need for more ports is a low cost Ethernet switch. 5 port ones are $30 or so, a bit more if it must be gigabit. Simply connect the switch to a WiFi router LAN port.

 

[rhombus]

Also, would not the total wireless throughput be limited by the one port on the wired router? If I use one of newer 4 port wireless routers (like the E4200) and increase wired ports with a switch, I might be limiting the performance of the wired devices by choking them through one port on the router.

If you use a wireless access point, the total wireless throughput is not going to exceed that of a wired 1Gbps connection to the router You can also easily configure any wireless router to function as an access point, so you need not limit your choice to pure access points or routers with a dedicated AP mode.

If you use a wireless router and a switch, and all wired devices are connected to that switch, then traffic between the wired devices does not pass via the router or get choked. So this option will also work well.

If you find a single wireless router/AP does not meet your coverage needs, and decide to run multiple access points for better throughput at range, cable is your best option.

I myself would never call other technologies "cable-alternatives". Wireless throughput could easily exceed that available by Powerline or MoCA, and could even really choke much worse than a wireless repeater might. You will need to try these out in-situ and measure throughput to be sure before committing. Powerline speeds can also be highly variable day-to-day, and the running costs for a pair of plugs are over $15 a year in the US, and £30 in the UK (at our respective electricity prices as of 2011). I learned all that out about Powerlines the hard way

 

[rhodesengr]

The not well understood issue is that the transmitted signal from your client devices/PCs is the limiting factor rather than the WiFi router/AP's signal strength.

Avoid a WiFi repeater (WDS).

That's a good point about the TX strength of the clients. I hadn't though of that. However, the receiving section in different routers can have different sensitivities. The easiest way to get more signal at the receiver is to increase the antenna gain (more antennas or bigger antennas). So one router may have may do a better job with the same client if it's receiver has higher sensitivity. As usual, you don't normally see the specs that would allow you to make this comparison.

Why the avoidance of the repeaters?