wireless Router

[Coded-Dude]

buffalo makes some good dd-wrt routers.

[DaveInOroValley]

You're right the Apple hardware is expensive and I have used plenty of other routers in the past that work just fine but there are some advantages using Airport Extremes and Expresses.

Being able to pipe in music to where ever you have a Express is handy, and being able to extend your network is very easy as well. In the end most will do what you want.

[Javi]

bought this about two years ago to replace the JUNK netgear that time warner
gave us- night & day difference. no issues in almost two years. $59 at a large electronics dealer in anaheim, on la palma- 'nuff said.

Good to hear! I haven't installed it yet because...Well, I don't know how to turn off our Verizon modem here. It's not one I'm used to seeing like these two:

[the86d]

The Actiontec's Verizon FiOS supplies have the longest up-time of any home router I have used, but I don't like torrent-nets as much as I used to either... I have never used one of their retail ones though.

[Fizz]

Dead honest opinion of someone who's done 1000s of router/equipment setups.... unless you're paying for enterprise class equipment (SonicWall, etc.) most Firewall/Routers are the same with difference mostly in features.

These features usually boil down to:

802.11 standard (B, G, N -150,300), etc.
Speed of available ethernet ports (Most rae 10/100, some have gigabit, pretty much moot for home users)
Estimated effective range
Aesthetics

Security between routers is mostly the same as they're standardized for home routers. WPA2, TKIP/AES, etc. are all things wireless routers these days have in common. There's the WPS vulnerability ( http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA12-006A.html) , but update your firmware and most models it's a moot point.

My suggestion. Go to your nearest retail store and buy a Wireless-N router that costs as much as you're willing to spend that has a preconfigured SSID and WPA Pass (they include an information card). If you have cable service it's as simple as powering off your modem, disconnecting the ethernet cable, powering it back up, powering up your new router, wait for both to finish booting up then connecting the ethernet cable from the router's wan port to the modem... use the information card to joint he clients (workstations) and you're done.

(the reason you should power down the modem and boot the router/modem fully before connecting them is that modems are REALLY sensitive about switching the devices they're connected to without a power cycle or restart, and some don't initialize properly if the cable is connected during bootup.... just my experience)

[dem0critus]

i've had a bunch of netgear routers and they've always been a problem for me. Honestly I think it's just bad luck tho. heard good things about cisco, and never had a problem with any of the asus products i've used.

[Fizz]

i've had a bunch of netgear routers and they've always been a problem for me. Honestly I think it's just bad luck tho. heard good things about cisco, and never had a problem with any of the asus products i've used.

I've seen SonicWalls fail and those are ~500 dollar or more cost of entry + licensing (VPN clients and such) and have nearly mandatory support contracts.

Electronics fail. It's what they do.

[high_revs]

Speed of available ethernet ports (Most rae 10/100, some have gigabit, pretty much moot for home users)


...

My suggestion. Go to your nearest retail store and buy a Wireless-N router that costs as much as you're willing to spend that has a preconfigured SSID and WPA Pass (they include an information card).

the 10/100/1gigabit does matter. if OP is transferring files, there is a significant difference in speed. but it does depend if you're hardwired for cat 5, 5e or 6. i noticed a big difference since i don't use dlna and usually transfer files to another machine to watch on tv. i can open the drive and play over the network, but i prefer not to congest the network doing that and would rather have the file local.

any reason you'd want a pre-configured ssid?


ducman,
i didn't see this posted, but if you don't have machines where the wifi card are triple band (triple antenna), then getting a triple antenna router doesn't make sense. money would just be wasted.

[Fizz]

the 10/100/1gigabit does matter. if OP is transferring files, there is a significant difference in speed. but it does depend if you're hardwired for cat 5, 5e or 6. i noticed a big difference since i don't use dlna and usually transfer files to another machine to watch on tv. i can open the drive and play over the network, but i prefer not to congest the network doing that and would rather have the file local.

any reason you'd want a pre-configured ssid?


ducman,
i didn't see this posted, but if you don't have machines where the wifi card are triple band (triple antenna), then getting a triple antenna router doesn't make sense. money would just be wasted.

Most home users don't transfer data across the network (WS<>WS, WS<>NAS, WS<>Server). Most home users use routers purely to share internet. Most users, if the instructions said "Log in here, click here, assign SSID here, set WPA/2-PSK, RADIUS here, set AES/TKIP here, enable radio here, select channel here.... they're not going to do it. They're going to notice that their connection works and not care about configuring security properly. Most home users don't really care what their network is called or what their password is. The ones that do probably can configure it themselves so this advice wouldn't apply.

Buying a router with gigabit drastically increases your cost. It's generally cheaper to buy an 8 port gigabit switch and place it behind the 10/100 router. Your router still does DHCP, DNS and internet, but intranet data transfer is taken care of entirely by the switch at gigabit speeds. So no, buying a 10/100 router does not preclude you from having gigabit transfers. It also frees up the router's time for other tasks.... which in you mention in your situation might be a benefit you're interested in. Once IPs are set switches self manage data between clients and separate out traffic.

Cat 5e+ can reliably sustain gigabit speeds no problem esp. in residential installs. However, only newer houses are built with ethernet cabled. Otherwise you're bringing someone in to cable (potentially $$$) or sticking with wireless. Most home users will opt for wireless and gigabit switch speeds are full circle to moot.

Yeah, it's possible to overbuy a router. But generally the client side is easier to bring up to snuff than reimplemenation/setup of new infrastructure when needs increase or by nature of technology the clients become more capable by virtue of 'high end' features rolling their ways into industry standards. Which, with wireless technology especially most always happens.

Let me know if I need to elaborate further on this.

[the86d]

With the cost of copper cable right now, I am SUPER GLAD I did a walk-through and verified it was pre-wired. It would have cost a pretty penny to wire the 2-story even for just a few connections!

[Fizz]

With the cost of copper cable right now, I am SUPER GLAD I did a walk-through and verified it was pre-wired. It would have cost a pretty penny to wire the 2-story even for just a few connections!

Really depends, some houses even if not wire per se have conduits routed throughout the walls that you can run the cable yourself with minimal effort. If an installer comes out this reduces your billable hours. Single story houses are usually pretty easy since you have attic space that drops down into walls where needed (I'm not a cable installer, but I work with a lot of them).

RJ45 wall plates are cheap and easy to wire. A home user paying attention with a spool of ethernet cable, crimper and ends... if at least moderately technically inclined and/or willing to exercise due diligence can get some good results with self installs.

Newer residential installs have some kind of telco/patch panel. Toss the modem, router and a switch and you can get wired up. But yeah, most people have no interest in A) doing this themselves or B) paying for it to be done.

[Gringo Bandito]

The best router I have used is the apple airport extreme. I watch a lot of Amazon, hulu, netflix and I never have any connection or quality issues like I have had with other brands. I will never buy another brand ever again based on my current experience.