Which router - Asus n66u, ac66u, ac68u or something else

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foosion

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Feb 19, 2013
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I'm looking for a new router. I live in an apartment building and there are about 25 2.4ghz APs near me and a few 5ghz APs. I'm getting a stronger signal from a few of the 2.4ghz APs than my current router, which is close but on the other side of a wall.

Clients include a laptop and a bunch of mobile devices. Two phones are AC, everything else is N.

The Asus routers seem to get the best reviews and I've been thinking of getting the RT-AC66U, although the RT-N66U is much less expensive and the RT-AC68U has been getting good reviews.

What would you recommend?
 
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When you use 802.11ac you need blocks of 4 channels. Check to see what your neighbors are using.

You want to use 36,40,44,48 or " 149,153,157,161" if used outside of the EU. These are the only channels that are not subject to having to shut themselves off withing 500ms if they detect weather radar. If some is using even 1 channel of these 4 near your (and if they are smart all 801.11ac users use the bottom 4) you may be better off picking another group. The next 4 52,56,60,64 are your next best choice. Most weather radar is up in the area between 100 and 144...but you can get radar on these also.

Although it is doubtful the radar could detect your router that is the rule and since radar transmits at much higher...
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RealBeast

RealBeast

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Sep 13, 2010
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The RT-AC66U is a very good router and I would buy it at the current price, as the 68U is quite a bit more for a very small performance bump. Since you can already use AC is makes sense, and forget about the 2.4GHz band with that may signals on it already -- not worth any effort at all to use 2.4GHz in such a case. Hopefully, most of your clients are 5GHz capable and the laptop can be easily upgraded with a USB wireless dual band adapter if needed.
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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When you use 802.11ac you need blocks of 4 channels. Check to see what your neighbors are using.

You want to use 36,40,44,48 or " 149,153,157,161" if used outside of the EU. These are the only channels that are not subject to having to shut themselves off withing 500ms if they detect weather radar. If some is using even 1 channel of these 4 near your (and if they are smart all 801.11ac users use the bottom 4) you may be better off picking another group. The next 4 52,56,60,64 are your next best choice. Most weather radar is up in the area between 100 and 144...but you can get radar on these also.

Although it is doubtful the radar could detect your router that is the rule and since radar transmits at much higher power than a router it is highly likely that your router would see it even if they could not see you. If it follows the rules it will likely drop back to 20mhz or 40mhz depending on which channel of the group the radar is on. The problem with weather radar is it not on all the time so you could get random results. How common this is in real life is hard to say. Me and friend wanted to see if it really did anything so we went over to a TV stations we knew the frequency of the radar. We got no messages from the router but it would not go to 80mhz channels when it overlapped the one the tv station was using.

I would still take the chance of using a channel that "may" have weather radar every now and then compared to competing with signals from neighbors you know are using the other channels.
 
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foosion

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Feb 19, 2013
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At the moment, nearby 5ghz is 36-40, 153 and 157-161, although channel width bounces around. I'm using inSSIDer 2.1 to check. Signal strength is around -70 or lower, which is much better than what I'm seeing on 2.4ghz
 
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MartinWilson

MartinWilson

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Aug 13, 2013
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I recently bit the bullet and went for a 68U. I didn't mind spending the money to get the best.

The 66U is still a great router and has dropped in price significantly since the release of the 68U, so you maybe that's the best option if money is a concern.
 
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