quote:

Originally posted by DonDraper:
Asus rocks too - I still have an Asus RT-N66R works great

I have 2 of them. They've served me well for, well getting to be a long time now.

In general I used to be a big Netgear fan for home networking gear, now I'm Netgear and Asus.

I have 3 Asus routers in my house. RT-AC5300 as my main router and RT-N66U and RT-AC87U I use as access points to get full coverage in my house and basement.

If I am looking for a piece of electronic hardware the first place I look is Asus. if they make it then I buy it from them.

quote:

Originally posted by onegeek:
The TP-Link Archer C7 is only a 1750, but has received several great test reviews on actual coverage/range. If you’re not streaming 4K or connecting multiple gaming systems you should be good. $80-100.
.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


I'm using two of these at the office and home and have had no problems. The one at home has been in use since April 2016, and when the Linksys WR54G crapped out (and it was a great unit, lasted > 5 years) at the office it was a no-brainer to replace it with the Archer.

I just got Google WiFi and have been very happy with it.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
I have a Netgear AC1200, ISP provided, poorly positioned (patch panel in top front corner of house).
Tech came out & demo'd an AC1900 & the signal was the same.

Bought a cheap POE switch & a Ubiquiti access point. Wi-Fi is exponentially better now. Ubiquiti is in the living room in the center of the house, out whole house has CAT5 run throughout.

Eventually I'll get around to networking the ports, but low priority now that we have great Wi-Fi.

I'm comfortable with networking basics and have had to replace routers more years than not over the past few years. Based on the strong advice of computer systems engineer I know for a major telecom company I just ordered a Ubiquiti AP too. He promises it'll be exponentially better without being more expensive, but I'll likely need his help setting it up.

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
I have a Netgear AC1200, ISP provided, poorly positioned (patch panel in top front corner of house).
Tech came out & demo'd an AC1900 & the signal was the same.

Bought a cheap POE switch & a Ubiquiti access point. Wi-Fi is exponentially better now. Ubiquiti is in the living room in the center of the house, out whole house has CAT5 run throughout.

Eventually I'll get around to networking the ports, but low priority now that we have great Wi-Fi.

I'm comfortable with networking basics and have had to replace routers more years than not over the past few years. Based on the strong advice of computer systems engineer I know for a major telecom company I just ordered a Ubiquiti AP too. He promises it'll be exponentially better without being more expensive, but I'll likely need his help setting it up.

The Ubiquiti software makes it super easy to set up. Took me all of about 15 minutes to do, for whatever reason, my PoE switch wasn't pushing power to the AP, so I had to plug the AP in to the wall.

There you goes go again. Costing me money....

My house is essentially a faraday cage, sided in corrugated steel sheets. I’ve been a huge supporter also of the Apple extreme. Though I’ve been unhappy with the signal strength of the newest generation (tall skinny one) in my house. I was using the previous (flat) generation as an extender. The signal to it was nominal and not enough to stream on the Apple TV a few feet away. Which leads me to....

I’ve been hoarding monetary gift cards, I had about 15 of then ranging from $25-100. My company sends them out for incentives, good work done special etc etc etc.

Well I went and bought the big dog ASUS GT-AC5300

Interface a bit funky as I really wont use the gaming aspect of it, though my son will

Coming from the Apple router environment for years I spent much of the night refamiliarizing myself with network protocols and advanced capabilities. The initial setup was almost as simple as the airport

Wireless speed test 5G with iPhone 7+ topped out at 293mbps down. On airport never got over 125. 5 still limited range inside the house but 2.4 is full strength throughout the house and outside now

I’ll call it a freebie and $50 less than I expected at Best Buy even off their website and local store selected. Hope some of the reviews don’t come to fruition

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
I have a Netgear AC1200, ISP provided, poorly positioned (patch panel in top front corner of house).
Tech came out & demo'd an AC1900 & the signal was the same.

Bought a cheap POE switch & a Ubiquiti access point. Wi-Fi is exponentially better now. Ubiquiti is in the living room in the center of the house, out whole house has CAT5 run throughout.

Eventually I'll get around to networking the ports, but low priority now that we have great Wi-Fi.

I'm comfortable with networking basics and have had to replace routers more years than not over the past few years. Based on the strong advice of computer systems engineer I know for a major telecom company I just ordered a Ubiquiti AP too. He promises it'll be exponentially better without being more expensive, but I'll likely need his help setting it up.

Just curious, but how are you going to handle the CAT cable that Ubiquiti WAP requires? Living in an apartment, doesn't that pose a challenge?

quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:
I added the express as an extender. Apple sites said this wouldn’t slow it down since they could be setup to do this. Speed test showed it was working fine this way. No problems for 1.5 years. Now things are getting glitchy. My streaming is cutting out a lot. Thought it could be my Roku but 2 different Rokus are doing it.

In your situation, you should not need an extended network. And extending a WiFi network without using cables will slow it down considerably. Per Apple, the ultimate Apple site - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202056 :

"Before you add additional Wi-fi base stations to your network, you should consider whether or not you really need to.

Adding Wi-Fi base stations when it is unnecessary can reduce Wi-Fi throughput because the Wi-Fi network will require more data management overhead. The network configuration also becomes more complex. In the case of a wirelessly extended network, throughput may be reduced to less than 60 percent of that of a single device. The general rule is to keep the Wi-Fi network as simple as possible. You can accomplish this by using the minimum number of Wi-Fi base stations required to service the physical network area and by using Ethernet wherever possible."

In your case, you just need one functioning WiFi router. Unless you have Gigabit fiber, you probably already have the router that you need. Your problems are likely due to router(s) not being setup correctly, your ISP, and maybe interference from your neighbors if you are using 2.4 GHz channels.

quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:
Anyhow when I moved originally I planned to buy a new extreme and amazon no longer had them. That’s when I read that Apple was discontinuing. I couldn’t find them anywhere. I’m surprised they are available now.

The rumor was that Apple has stopped design development of new routers. That seems to be true, but Apple is still producing and selling them, and a firmware update came out this year. You can buy a technically better router for less money, but if you still want to buy one, this is the least expensive place that I know of to buy a 6th generation Apple Airport Extreme Base Station: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c...me_802_11ac_usa.html ($173, no tax, unadvertised prepaid 2-day shipping).

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
I have a Netgear AC1200, ISP provided, poorly positioned (patch panel in top front corner of house).
Tech came out & demo'd an AC1900 & the signal was the same.

Bought a cheap POE switch & a Ubiquiti access point. Wi-Fi is exponentially better now. Ubiquiti is in the living room in the center of the house, out whole house has CAT5 run throughout.

Eventually I'll get around to networking the ports, but low priority now that we have great Wi-Fi.

I'm comfortable with networking basics and have had to replace routers more years than not over the past few years. Based on the strong advice of computer systems engineer I know for a major telecom company I just ordered a Ubiquiti AP too. He promises it'll be exponentially better without being more expensive, but I'll likely need his help setting it up.

Just curious, but how are you going to handle the CAT cable that Ubiquiti WAP requires? Living in an apartment, doesn't that pose a challenge?

I ran network lines to a couple key locations a few years ago and terminated them, so no big deal in my case. Mostly in the attic crawl spaces then down into the correct walls. Nothing hard to get to as the bulk of everything wired remained upstairs. I have one line downstairs hiding under my staircase which is where the AP is now, but I was able to hop out of hte crawlspace and into the garage, so access happened to be easy there too. I couldn't easily get lines into the rest of the downstairs, though.

I had an Asus that I has to restart every month or so, and it finally died. Replaced it with a TP-Link that I had to restart a few times in the first days.

Replaced it with a Linksys AC2200 MU-MIMO Tri-Band and couldn't be happier. Reaches the whole house and all devices have much faster connections.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
I have a Linksys router WRT54G, I believe, that is probably ten years old, never misses a beat.

Holy Security vulnerabilities Batman. Be careful......

https://tools.cisco.com/securi...Alert.x?alertId=9722

At one point the source code became public for that model, IIRC.

I have a $25 late model Linksys refurb that I only use for routing/NAT. I have a Ubiquiti UAP-AC-PRO for wireless, and it’s FANTASTIC. ymmv

I just picked one of these Asus routers at Amazon. It seemed to get great reviews nearly everywhere. It’ll be here on the 23rd, we’ll see.

https://www.asus.com/us/Networking/RT-AC88U/

for those who bought an Asus recently, there appears to be a smallish rebate of $10 to $20..

quote:

Originally posted by rh:
Also and anyway, if the OP's intention is to create an extended network using an Apple WiFI router with any other brand of router, I've never gotten that to work. That's just been my experience, but Apple WiFi routers do not play well with other WiFi routers.

Perhaps if you are extending the Wi-Fi network wirelessly. I have an AEBS gen 4, and two Engenius Access Points. The AEBS is in bridged mode, functioning as an AP only. All three are extended using cable from the central network switch, and the extended Wi-Fi network works flawlessly. One Engenius AP is an exterior model, out by the RV pad (conduit carries cable out there), one in the Living Room, and the AEBS in a bedroom.
 
BTW, I am quite pleased with the Engenius AP's, on the recommendation of smschulz. They put out a much stronger signal than the AEBS. The models I have are ENS1200 (outside), and EAP1750H (Living Room).
 

I run all Ubiquiti at my home. Range, speed, and congestion is never an issue.

If you have a newer Airport it should be gigabit ports on it. I’d get a UAP-AC-PRO and connect it to one of those ports, disable the wireless on the airport, and use the Ubiquiti. I am certain you will see a world of difference if everything else on your airport is still working fine.

When I see these threads of which router to buy in my view it is the wrong question.

If I get a client asking the same question I will ignore it and ask what is the "problem"?
They will proceed to tell me of wifi drop out areas, connectivity issues or a performance issue in general.

However, in these cases you must analyze your wifi environment.
Without that you will never know how to properly solve your problem.

Most consumers just try another unit and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
But what factors changed to make it better or not?

What I do is look at the environment, then I walk the premise with site survey software to get a map of the wifi signals.
I wouldn't expect an average home owner to do this as it is expensive, a bit technical and complicated.

However, you can do a few things to get a better picture and direction of what to do:
* Draw a simple floor plan of your area.
* Note where your AP/Router is on the map.
* On mobile device > use an app, software (plenty of them) that will give you a RSSI level (Received Signal Strength Indicator).
* Record the levels in various spots. The signal will be expressed in a -db > the higher the number the worse > -65 is better than -75.
* Great signals are -65 or better (lower) and signals of -80 or higher may still work but could experience issues.
* Then walk around and record an Internet Speed Test in those same spots and compare it to the RSSI levels.
* Know that obstructions like walls, concrete, glass, washing machines all can affect the signal mostly not in a good way. A wifi ap or router stuck back in a convenient closet might not be the best position.
* Thing of the wifi signal like a sounds from a speaker > will the sound be the same three rooms over?
* So placement is always critical.
* Also when you walk your environment how many other SSID's do you see?
* You also want to know what other SSID are in the area too and note their channels and signal strength.

Some of these will let you know what is going on and what path to take.

One item that is now hitting the market that is especially helpful in the consumer market is > MESH AP's.
These are basically a central AP that is connected by a wire and the rest of these are connected to each other by wifi pretty similar to a repeater, extender except that they intelligently coexist.
Since multiple AP installations are difficult in an existing home as they all are generally hard wired > these make it easy to install and add to appropriate places (hence the placement mentioned above).

One last thing sometimes (well most of the time) the issue is the client aka phone/tablet/laptop etc.
Above addresses the signal from the WIFI to the client but the client HAS to be able to talk back.
For better performance > more AP's strategically located with the power levels turned back on the AP.
For difficult areas or distant areas there are directional antennas that can solve the problem.

So sometimes a random equipment change may not always solve your problem.

EnGenius Mesh Network is an example of what I eluded to above.

What is the difference between mesh and other multiple WAP solutions? Is mesh more seamless when the client is mobile? I tried two WAPs in my house but had trouble with clients not switching to the WAP with the better signal while moving around the house. I solved it eventually by just using one WAP and relocating it to a more central (but less convenient) location, but coverage in my yard isn't good.