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Can somone recommend a router
- Thread starter riw7124
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DSL?
Cable?
Fibre?
Budget?
Wifi required?
Number of devices using it?
All of those things will affect what is suitable.
Routers are pretty operating system independent, so a good "Mac" router is pretty much the same device as a good "PC" router.
The airport extreme is not really expensive for what you get, it is an excellent wifi access point (signal strength much better than cheaper devices) and is very easy to set up and use. However, if you are using DSL, you will need a DSL modem to plug into it as well.
Cable?
Fibre?
Budget?
Wifi required?
Number of devices using it?
All of those things will affect what is suitable.
Routers are pretty operating system independent, so a good "Mac" router is pretty much the same device as a good "PC" router.
The airport extreme is not really expensive for what you get, it is an excellent wifi access point (signal strength much better than cheaper devices) and is very easy to set up and use. However, if you are using DSL, you will need a DSL modem to plug into it as well.
The has been an inexpensive reliable workhorse for years
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190
I have several Netgear WRG3700, all running openwrt the open source firmware rather than the build from the factory. If you know what you're doing / are prepared to google some, openwrt is the place to be, if you want things stupid simple and supported I'd spend the $$ for an Airport Express or Extreme - I have an Express and it's dual band now so should do for most people, I'm only using it as an Airplay receiver though so can't promise that.
You are looking for a wireless router and all you are going to do is surf the web and stuff like that? Go to the store and get the cheapest brandname router they have. Dlink, Netgear, Linksys, Belkin, whatever. It not going to make that much of a difference. If there are special features you want such as gaming or you need lots of control to limit different types of users, then that's a different story.
asus rt n56, the best router ive owned. after netgear and d link i switched to this one and its been the best router ive had since. extremely fast and reliable!
i currently have, and have always bought Linksys.
i had a D-Link one for a few days but its range was horrible and kept crashing (after 2 exchanges as well)
i had a D-Link one for a few days but its range was horrible and kept crashing (after 2 exchanges as well)
Absolutely, but the point still stands - they are cheap and by far the most reliable consumer router ever made. For a light user they are more than adequate, and mine only went out of service in late 2011 to be replaced with an Asus RT-n66u which is a great router, but like almost every model, other than the 54GL, requires a reboot every few weeks or so.
i have this router as i wrote and i can add that ive had in a year and so far not a single reboot has been necessary.
^+1.
I've been using an Airlink 101 $20 router for like 8 years now and it's SOLID. Have to reset it maybe once a year.
Airport Extreme, for the money they charge you, STILL doesn't have QOS, is kinda unacceptable to me.
You realise QoS is of limited use for a home user, and that it can only be applied on outbound trafic, yes?
i.e., unless you have your ISP applying QoS tags upstream before they send data to you, there is no way to prioritise incoming traffic - as it has already come down the pipe by the time you see it (which is what you likely care about)...
That said, imho, what you're paying for with the airport extreme is the wifi point. It is excellent in terms of range and performance. What I don't like about it router wise is that it can't do DHCPv6 prefix allocations over PPPoE, which is what my ISP uses for native IPv6.
So i'm running a Cisco 877...
Actually I was thinking prioritizing just your LAN traffic as more and more people are doing video.
If thats the case you probably want a real switch. Whilst the airport has gigabit ports, I suspect that the backplane performance on it is fairly limited - whether it supported QoS or not, i very much doubt you'd get anywhere near line rate on all the gig ports on it at the same time.
I guess what I'm saying is that the airport itself will not be able to process the packets fast enough and will run out of performance long before you'd start needing QoS to start discarding traffic to fit on a gigabit LAN port...
It's not really what the device is aimed at - and you won't get that performance in a device anywhere near that cost.
Sure, you might get QoS on some device around that price - but it won't be able to do QoS effectively at LAN speeds...
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Ah no, you are going the extremes.
Example, I notice my 1080 video stream takes ~12 mbit, my 802.11G tops off at 27 mbit, and yet I get the occasional stutter. It's not necessarily total bandwidth, but without QOS, you have to assume the router precesses traffic in a round-robin fashion(?). So OK if I am the ONLY user at all times, and there is no interference by neighbors, or microwave fine, but in real life...
In a perfect world, we'll be all WIRED but people want wireless, where there are more variables involved.
Ahh... i see. you're wanting QoS on the Wifi (sorry when you said "lan" i presumed wired).
Still, the Airport Extreme does up to 300 megabit over 5ghz N, and i generally get at least 100 megabit anywhere in the house. So in that case, QoS not needed...
But i see your issue.
Yes, without QoS, the router will process traffic FIFO (first in first out).
Still, QoS can only be applied outbound from the device. So again - if you're throwing 30 megabit at it from your PC, the wifi on the router is going to need to handle it (it has already been sent, and can't discard what is already in flight - even if it drops the traffic on arrival, it took bandwdith to get to the router), and it will consume Wifi bandwidth, irrespective of what QoS settings you have on the router. Unless your end device is ALSO doing QoS marking and bandwidth management (i.e., rate limiting what it sends) on the traffic as it leaves the originating device (PC, NAS, whatever).
Also, as Wifi bandwidth is shared between all devices - all of them will need to be doing QoS marking for it to work effectively.
QoS is not a magic bullet. Also, it will only help by discarding traffic - the stutter you are currently getting, i suspect won't get any better if data is dropped and a re-transmit is requested (if it is carried over TCP, if it is UDP, it will just get discarded and you'll perhaps drop a frame or glitch? depending on how you're streaming the data)... at some point, you simply need more bandwidth.
I suspect if you just upgrade to an N capable access point/wifi adapter, your problem will go away without needing QoS. And I don't believe that QoS is going to help your situation much even if you were to attempt to do it over wifi.
QoS is most effective when you have an incoming data stream that needs to be shaped to fit a smaller pipe on its way through your router. e.g., if you were trying to determine how to shape your 30 megabit wifi down to 1 megabit outgoing ADSL. You simply prioritize what you don't want to drop...
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i use macbook pro as a wifi router. I used internet sharing option and run as a router to all my electronics, such as iphone and ipad
So... All your devices lose their internet connection when you take your MacBook Pro somewhere. Smart.
i took my phone and ipad with me. And these are the only two devices i am using. However, i have another macbook pro, non retina, always left it at home for this purpose. And btw, why do i need other device to have connection if i am not with them?
When buying a WiFi-N router, you need to make sure it is a Final-N, not old Draft-N.
Otherwise, you could get some random network drops because of incompatibility with other products.
All current Apple routers are Final-N. Also, you get a network speed up to 450Mbps (at least on Airport Extreme)
Otherwise, you could get some random network drops because of incompatibility with other products.
All current Apple routers are Final-N. Also, you get a network speed up to 450Mbps (at least on Airport Extreme)
A vote here for Draytek...High end pro routers...Not cheap, but rock solid. I used one for quite a while before I bought a Time Capsule and an AE unit which now take care of my wifi needs. The ISP supplied Netgear has a wifi range of about 10 feet, so all wifi on it is disabled and it just acts as a modem. Everything else is plugged into my TC.
I think the Airport Extreme is worth the price. I went through several other routers before just buying the Airport and wish I'd done so sooner.
The speed is great, and (I think more importantly for most users) the range is excellent. For what you get it seems like a pretty good price.
The speed is great, and (I think more importantly for most users) the range is excellent. For what you get it seems like a pretty good price.