What router features for densely populated area with lots of interference?

[djc6]

I'm looking for a router for use in a studio apartment in a densely populated high rise building, surrounded by other high rises, and adjacent to an NFL football stadium with many APs. I do try and use ethernet for as much as possible, but I need something for iPhone XS and iPad Air (3rd gen; 2019) among other things. Sometimes its nice to use laptop (Late 2013 Macbook Pro) without thunderbolt 2 -> ethernet dongle and cable.

I use 5Ghz exclusively since 2.4Ghz is unusable, with two separate SSIDs. None of my devices support Wi-Fi 6. Currently using Asus RT-N66U purchased in 2013 and the 5Ghz WiFi performance is poor lately, especially during football games.

Any particular router features I should look for that help with interference? Thanks!

I was thinking about TP-Link Archer AX50 - I got my parents a TP-Link Archer C7 in 2018, and I'm very impressed by the complete lack of tech support calls I receive. It just works.

 

[Tech9]

If your ISP speed is up to 150-200Mbps, your RT-N66U should be able to provide full speed to common 2-stream 5GHz wireless clients. Experiment with different WI-Fi channels on 5GHz band. If your ISP is much faster, a newer AC/AX model router may work better for you. Asus routers have good support and receive security updates regularly. RT-AX58U model may fit well your needs.

 

[dev_null]

I'm looking for a router for use in a studio apartment in a densely populated high rise building, surrounded by other high rises, and adjacent to an NFL football stadium with many APs. I do try and use ethernet for as much as possible, but I need something for iPhone XS and iPad Air (3rd gen; 2019) among other things. Sometimes its nice to use laptop (Late 2013 Macbook Pro) without thunderbolt 2 -> ethernet dongle and cable.

I use 5Ghz exclusively since 2.4Ghz is unusable, with two separate SSIDs. None of my devices support Wi-Fi 6. Currently using Asus RT-N66U purchased in 2013 and the 5Ghz WiFi performance is poor lately, especially during football games.

Any particular router features I should look for that help with interference? Thanks!

I was thinking about TP-Link Archer AX50 - I got my parents a TP-Link Archer C7 in 2018, and I'm very impressed by the complete lack of tech support calls I receive. It just works.

Assuming you're in the US, you want to consider a router that uses the UNII-2 or UNII-2 Ext channels (52-144). This would include the AX86 and AX88 and maybe a few others.

It's complicated because these are DFS channels subject to the router changing the channel if it detects certain radar emissions. And given your description it sounds like an environment where that might happen.

I'm somewhat surprised that in a studio-sized apartment the N66U doesn't serve you well. What firmware version are you using? John's LTS has a couple builds, one with Legacy drivers that - while not the most up to date - might help the situation. I have an N66U as a guest-net extender in a crowded 2.4gHz environment and have no issues connecting and sustaining decent throughput (it's principally my IOT devices, but some are video-centric).

Interestingly, non-US versions of the N66U support the UNII-2 channels, but short of finding one overseas it'd be complicated.

 

[djc6]

I don't have any concrete evidence router is the issue.

I have a Netgear CM600 cable modem, DOCSIS 3.0 24x8 on Spectrum's 200/10 tier. On the cable modem's interface, the power levels look good, SNR is good, correctables/uncorrectables are fine. Nothing looks amiss. Locked onto 24 downstream channels, locked onto 4 upstream channels.

When I use speedtest.net app on my phone via WiFi, I see nearly full 200/10 speeds and even over provisioned a little.

But video on all devices doesn't work well. I can't reliably zoom on laptop, I can't reliably facetime on phone, I can't reliably stream AT&T TV via Roku Stick+ - its heavily pixelated. Facetime says poor connection way more than it works, etc.. Since the router has been powered on for 8+ years nonstop at this point, I thought it might have had it. The CM600 is two years old. Its hard to troubleshoot without any spares to swap with to pinpoint source of issue.

 

[djc6]

Assuming you're in the US, you want to consider a router that uses the UNII-2 or UNII-2 Ext channels (52-144). This would include the AX86 and AX88 and maybe a few others.

Thanks for pointing this out; I didn't know about these extra channels. The TP-Link AX50 says it supports DFS too, so that and its $130 price continue to make it attractive. It might require switching to a Roku with an ethernet port, as Roku's website claims none of their devices supports DFS.

I am leery that the TP-Link AX50 has an Intel GRX350 SoC after the Puma 6 debacle, and the lack of WPA3 is annoying. But DFS sounds to be a real benefit for my situation.

 

[dev_null]

I don't have any concrete evidence router is the issue.

But video on all devices doesn't work well. I can't reliably zoom on laptop, I can't reliably facetime on phone, I can't reliably stream AT&T TV via Roku Stick+ - its heavily pixelated. Facetime says poor connection way more than it works, etc.. Since the router has been powered on for 8+ years nonstop at this point, I thought it might have had it. The CM600 is two years old. Its hard to troubleshoot without any spares to swap with to pinpoint source of issue.

Could be a QOS issue, but more than likely it's a CPU thing - the single 600mHz CPU of the N66U might not be up to streaming/videoconferencing. I haven't tried that for a long time on mine - with the exception of FT, which I've done on several occasions without any issue.

I suppose you could try to tweak the existing QOS settings before anything else to see if that helps. There is information in various places about the ports used by various applications such as Zoom or MSTeams.

Have you tried Zoom on the laptop while wired to the router? Same issue? If you move the Roku further AWAY from the router, does that help? Sometimes in a small environment the signal can be too strong (Roku actually has this in their documentation, IIRC).

On some firmware versions, it's possible to adjust the power levels. In WIRELESS > PROFESSIONAL do you have that option (called Tx power adjustment)? You could try lowering or raising the output to see if that helps.

 

[Tech9]

I don't have any concrete evidence router is the issue.

Update this N66U to the latest firmware available, reset it to factory defaults, set your SSID names. 2.4GHz radio on fixed 20MHz channel 1-6-11, 5GHz radio on fixed 20/40MHz channel 36 or 149. Don't change anything else, leave the defaults. Try again and see how it goes. Change the router only if you see no improvement. Get a new one from a place accepting returns. Test your new router, but avoid using DFS channels. You have just a few devices mostly used one at a time on a 200Mbps ISP. I wouldn't bother with QoS at all.