I currently have an AE2 wireless router that bridges off of my Uverse router. I am looking to upgrade to a stronger and faster router. I was looking at the new AE or should I consider something different like the Asus RT-AC68U. I use my home network for internet browsing and movie downloading/streaming. All computers and devices are Apple for now. Any advice on wireless routers?
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Which wireless router
- Thread starter wicked23
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Sorry, not a good idea to use short form AE, you have Airport Express 2nd Gen and you are looking into getting the new AirPort Extreme?
To me the AirPort Extreme is a very good wireless router for performance, for basic users.
I personally use the Asus RT-AC66U as my main router and very happy with the performance getting 100% throughput speed with 5Ghz wifi, maybe because I have a small home
Reason for my choice is because I need the freedom to make some changes to my router, 1 which is to run off the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware so that I can SSH into my router as there are some limitation on the stock firmware.
I also needed UPNP and certain port forwarding setups.
If you don't need such, I think the AirPort Extreme is a good choice.
Yeah sorry about that. I have Airport Express 2nd Gen and am looking into getting the new AirPort Extreme? I don't really need to do anything fancy right now but would like something powerful enough to reach a garage apartment 100+ feet away and through 2 exterior walls.
I just moved from a TP-LINK WDR3600 running open-wrt to the newest Airport Extreme (Got in on the $120 bestbuy refurb deal). I like it a lot. The lack of QoS is probably the only thing I miss.
You know something, I manage AirPorts in a school environment. There are eight 2nd Gen. Expresses connected to an Extreme and there has never been a need for QoS. Not sure if there is some form of auto QoS, but my 105 users on the system never complain.
Nothing particularly wrong with the Extreme except it is somewhat feature limited compared to other routers in it class. But if you want a router with the best range to address what you think is going to be weak wifi area, there are better options.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com
Read over the reviews of the Extreme and others at this site.
I use a VOIP provider for telephone service and would love to have QOS. Apple also, for no good reason, removed SNMP logging from the latest models when it was there on the older models.
If it were not for the convenience of the Time Capsule, I would have dumped by Apple router long ago.
Nothing really wrong with them for most users, but they are short on features for the more advanced user.
I could not afford to lose SNMP as iNet is a valuable tool in my applications for the network. The reason why I went AirPort is mainly price vs. performance. I am 16 and fundraised for it so it was quite refreshing not to max out my budget for my Eagle Project. I wanted Ubiquiti UniFi, but the UAP Pros were not out yet and I could not use the lower end APs for various reasons. I am happy but I see the limitations that AirPort has.