Need advice: a WIFI router to cover my entire house

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thuannt05

thuannt05

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Oct 14, 2014
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I've been searching for tons of reviews but I can't find a router that fit my need. So I hope someone would be willing to help me on this. Thanks in advance

Heres how my house's like:
Length: 20 meter
Width: 4.5 meters
Height: 4.2 meters (g-floor) / 3.5 meters (1st-floor)
1 thick floor from 1st floor to g-floor. Going through 2 thick walls.
Total area that needs wifi coverage: 200 square meters (100squ meters each floor)

The router will be put on the 1st floor, somewhere near the center of the house

I need good to very-good wifi signal and a router that wont restart itself or disconnect clients once in a while.

I mostly do web surfing, online gaming, streaming, and my internet speed is 12mb down/up (but actual down speed is only 1.5mb/s). So speed is not a big deal here, but wifi stability is, because I need a stable connection for work.

Price is not a big deal here as long as the router is good for my need. But the cheaper the better, of course ^^

Btw, even though I need a stable connection, but wired connection is out of the question, thats why theres a "wifi" word in the title, so don't recommend me such thing as other "wifi thread".
Netgear is not available in my country, so I wont be able to buy one.
Thanks again for reading.
 
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dark_lord69

dark_lord69

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Jun 6, 2006
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Asus routers have been landing on the top of many, best router lists ever since Linksys was bought by Belkin.
I'd just pick one from ASUS's lineup.
Wireless N has decent signal coverage but wireless A/C has beam forming coverage. Also, wireless AC uses the 5Ghz frequency band for the largest signal range currently possible.
 
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g90814

g90814

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Apr 11, 2013
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Netgear, ASUS, Linksys, TP-Link, Buffalo Technologies are all good brands.

I'd recommend getting a router with external antennas. The newer ones with 3 antennas are good for coverage, unless you want to spend a lot for the ones with even more.
 
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thuannt05

thuannt05

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There is one of these 2 routers I'm considering. They are both equal in term of price

Asus RT-N18U ( i like this one)
Wireless N and 2.4ghz only (but I'm fine with it)- 1 review about it so far, and it seems pretty good. It also has dd-wrt firmware and external antennas

TP-Link Archer C7 (version is unverified since I can't just ask the store to unpack it and let me check lol)
Wireless AC and dual bands. Version 1 has many negative reviews and many ppl say that version 2 is better in many ways. But it has internal 2.4ghz antennas. No dd-wrt.

You can recommend any other better routers. But please don't recommend those from netgear because theres no retailer of that brand here. Btw, I live in Vietnam-Asia, and it's sad that theres no online retailers here :(
 
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bill001g

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Be very careful about these new magic routers claiming 600m on the 2.4g band. The way they are accomplishing this is they are using a encoding that is actually part of the 802.11ac standard on the 2.4g band. This is not a actual part of any of the current standards. Although it might in the future be implemented there is no requirement to support this so most equipment will not utilize it. To get any advantage you would need nics in your machine also. It will not be easy to find devices that support this since it is non standard. And in many cases like phones and tablets you can't change the nic and they will never support a proprietary implementation.

If you are looking for a less expensive asus device I would look at the n66u or even n56u.
 
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g90814

g90814

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One thing to know about reviews: people are much more apt to post a negative review rather than a positive one ;)

The ASUS router would probably work fine, although it is rather dated.

Tthe Archer C7 has 3 external antennas. Some pictures show it without the antenna attached, so that may have misled you. It does support DD-WRT. Reviews are pretty good here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704177 Your retailer should be able to tell the version by looking at the box. http://www.tp-link.com/lk/Article/?id=46 (there should be a similar label on the outside of the box as well as on the router itself).

Be sure to check http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices when verifiying dd-wrt compatibiity, their router database on main page doesn't always work right.
 
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thuannt05

thuannt05

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@bill001g: n56u is available in my area and it's $10 less than rt-n18u (many positive reviews about it, too) . But will it cover my entire house with good-to-very-good signal? (20 meters length, going through 2 brick walls)

@g90814: Archer C7 - it's shown as supported in dd-wrt wiki page, but there's nothing in the download page
 
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bill001g

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It is impossible to even guess how well any router will cover in a house. If you where to put the device in a huge open warehouse with no walls you could compare router with some test site. When you talk someones house it gets impossible to even predict the house makes way too much difference. Generally brick and concrete walls block a lot more signal that simple drywall but even very simple things like aluminum foil backed insulation greatly degrade the signal levels. Even the type of paint or wallpaper can have large effects.

Most brand name routers all transmit at the maximum legal limits so you will get generally the same coverage. 2.4g generally has better ability to penetrate walls and floors so it tends to go farther but you never really know I have seen 5g signals stronger than 2.4g for completely unknown reasons.

You will likely not see a great deal of difference between routers, some will run a little faster at certain distances but the actual distance the signal goes is related to the amount of energy the router can output and that is regulated by the government.

Now why some routers work better is some houses is a complete mystery. When you see reviews it is a really a review of the persons house and their end devices in combination with the router. This is why you see every router made with someone saying how bad it is.

Pretty much you need to pick a router based on features and then just hope it works well. If the walls are blocking it you are going to have to find a non wireless solution to get past them.
 
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thuannt05

thuannt05

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@bill001g: what you explain there is right, maybe I'll have to hope the one I'll pick will work well :(

@g90814: it seems those Archer c7 routers in my country are all version1 (and most bad experiences were from those with this v1 routers, and they are out of stock,too), so I guess I'll have to look at other routers :(

 
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