Additional router as access point


Recommended Posts

So basically, we built a rather large house recently, and I'm looking to expand the wifi in the house. The house is all wired in every room, and everything comes back downstairs to the corner of the house where the few wired connections actually used go into a switch and ADSL router.  With it being in one corner of the house, wifi on the other side is rather poor.

I'm looking to pick up a router that I can plug in and add as an additional access point, but I can't quite balance features I want vs features would realistically need.

I'd probably want to future proof and get an 802.11ac one.

Gigabit ethernet ports.

Generally reliable. Don't want to be having to restart it every other day.

If it's dd-wrt compatible, it's a plus, but wouldn't be fussed if works out of the box fine.

 

Was looking along the lines of a TP-Link Archer C2 AC750: http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-C2-Wireless-Gigabit-Storage/dp/B00K0MJ8DS/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1413810026&sr=1-3&keywords=ac750 

 

I'm wondering though, is there much of a real-world difference between that and the higher speeds of say an AC1750 router :http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-C2-Wireless-Gigabit-Storage/dp/B00K0MJ8DS/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1413810026&sr=1-3&keywords=ac750

 

Be mostly used for general internet usage, as well as streaming to Chromecast (assuming it's Chromecast compatible xD) from internet and a local PC.

Would anyone have any better suggestions?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

what is your internet speed, what type of devices are you connecting to it?  basically if you want to know if the 1750 will give you better performance than the 750, it would depend on the devices you are connecting to it. 

 

If your internet is say 50Mb/s, you won't see much of an increase in internet speed between the two but you may when connecting to a lan based device, if your wireless device supports more than 1 stream. 

 

If your internet is 100+Mb/s, you will see an increase in internet speed on the 1750 if your devices support more than 1 stream. 

 

If your devices only support 1 stream, it doesn't matter which one you get as you will be limited by the wireless device.  Does that make sense to you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What is your budget looking like?  50 quid?

 

While its not AC, do you have AC devices?  As sc302 asks whats your internet speed and use case for wireless, how many streams does devices support?

 

If I had a larger house and was looking to cover different areas I would go with unifi AP at that budget, http://www.amazon.co.uk/UBIQUITI-Networks-UAP-UniFi/dp/B005VSY0VQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1413814561&sr=1-1&keywords=unifi

 

My house is smaller and 1 AC one does the trick for me - The AC model is a bit pricing at $300 -- but so far blows away using a router for AP hands down with the enterprise like feature set.  Wish my house was bigger so I would have an excuse to deploy more of them ;)

 

Comes down to your use case on what would be the best option for you - it very well might be a $20 router used for AP that doesn't even support 3rd party firmware - if all you want is a wireless signal, etc..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Internet speed... err a rather pitiful 5Mb... with very little chance of it being upgraded out where I'm living.  So that's not much of a worry.  So it would be more of a focus on the speed between LAN devices. (Currently using an 802.11g router as a bridge upstairs, so buffering from a lan device can be an issue sometimes, so also intend to replace that).

There's a lot of devices between phones, tablets and laptops, most are N compatible.  2 or 3 supporting AC. Couldn't say much more about each's specific features :/ 

I'm assuming from what you've said so, the 'budget' one would be realistically capable so?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So what do you do on the lan, are you wanting to stream movies to all the devices at once, or just have coverage for your tablet while in another room to internet or what?

 

To be honest with 5mb internet connection, anything would work.  Depening on what your doing internally on your network, and what your AC devices even support -- you have 2 or 3 that support that would be quite new hardware.  Most mobile devices are very limited in their AC support, its just now becoming more common.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So what do you do on the lan, are you wanting to stream movies to all the devices at once, or just have coverage for your tablet while in another room to internet or what?

 

To be honest with 5mb internet connection, anything would work.  Depening on what your doing internally on your network, and what your AC devices even support -- you have 2 or 3 that support that would be quite new hardware.  Most mobile devices are very limited in their AC support, its just now becoming more common.

The better coverage, as well as the local streaming, but obviously not to 'every' device.  Wanted to go with a router for the extra ethernet ports for satellite box/games consoles, whatever.

And something reliable that I don't have to be remotely troubleshooting with my mum over the phone xD

 

Yeah probably any device would do nearly. Think it's just me wanting more than I need, or can even use lol.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can get away with g.  really.  The budget router would be more than what you could ever possibly need until they up the bandwidth in your area or you decide to pay for more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can get away with g.  really.  The budget router would be more than what you could ever possibly need until they up the bandwidth in your area or you decide to pay for more.

 

Who really wants a g router though, really  :rolleyes: Have a g one running upstairs, but on a "busy" night when everyone online, sometimes have to resort to rather high compression for local HD streaming. And that's not much to look at then.

Yeah, the speeds here will never really get any better, unless 4G becomes a possibility... but unlikely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you could have a few g routers/access points to be able to handle the load.  but obviously the g will handle your hd, perhaps not with a "busy" night and 1 router/access point. 

 

To fix coverage holes and to fix bandwidth to each device, you need to install multiple access points.  Say you have the coverage and 100 computers access 1 access point, being that wireless is shared bandwidth the total bandwidth gets divided by 100...so you have 54 which is really 27 Mb/s will get divided by how many devices connect to that g router/access point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Probably what I would have done if I had 2 or 3 working ones lying around.

Yeah I see what you're saying all right. Sure adding this router would be the third access point.

Suppose it is just me being a little overkill...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.