Wi-Fi Router for max 3K?

[Doubleseven]

A noob here with regards to router and I need help choosing a Wi-Fi router for a price of around 3K.

Requirements:
- I have ACT broadband (newly installed in Chennai). A modem-router is not needed because it is Fiber broadband
- Good range - 5db antennae? (1000 sq ft house - Modem will be placed in a corner of a room and signal needs to penetrate 3 walls. )
- USB support will be good to have
- DD-WRT or something similar (I am not sure how this will be useful in my use-case, but very eager to try this and make use of it)
- Dual band? (Is this very important/possible to acquire withing this budget?)
- Always on usage
Please let me know what I could consider (also if I am expecting too much for my budget ) . Also, I don't mind a modem-router if it can be solely used a router.

Thanks a lot for reading!

 

[cranky]

Dual band is not possible in your budget. The lowest priced dual band options are not bound to be very good.

I picked up a Netgear JNR3210 a few days ago, to be used as an access point. I had a couple of 5dBi antennae laying around, and the signal is stronger than the much more expensive WNDR3700 (in use as my main router, but no external antennae). The 3700 is on the third floor and the 3210 on the first floor. I get -70dBm or better from the 3210 three floors up, whereas the 3700 is barely ticking at -80dBm three floors down.

DD-WRT is a no-no for these routers though, but the stock firmware is nice enough for me.

 

[blr_p]

- Good range - 5db antennae? (1000 sq ft house - Modem will be placed in a corner of a room and signal needs to penetrate 3 walls. )

How thick are these walls ? 6, 9 or 11 inches ?

bear in mind you lose anywhere from 5-10db crossing just one 11 inch wall. So boosting from 5db to 9db antenna means you get to cross one more wall should you require it.

- DD-WRT or something similar (I am not sure how this will be useful in my use-case, but very eager to try this and make use of it)

tomato will do the same, both dd-wrt & tomato can access optware packages, 1k+ of them.

- Dual band? (Is this very important/possible to acquire withing this budget?)

5ghz is mostly useless if you have 3 walls to traverse. Better if you are in the same room or 1 wall max.

5ghz is if you have a very crowded spectrum in the 2.4ghz. if you have an android device, download inssider and see how many neighbouring networks are around and what signal level they have, networks over -80dbm you can ignore. Ones in the 50s will be problematic. But the thing is they have to be operating at the same thing as you. Otherwise you kinda manage ok but performance will not be consistent.

Please let me know what I could consider (also if I am expecting too much for my budget ) . Also, I don't mind a modem-router if it can be solely used a router.

You've not mentioned what your intended usage will be. Just basic browsing & YT or movie streaming. Number of clients etc. What kind of clients ? low powered ie mobiles or laptops.

Did you have a wifi router before, mention the model# and what its performance wa slike. This will serve as a benchmark of sorts to gauge range and meet if not exceed expectations.

 

[Doubleseven]

How thick are these walls ? 6, 9 or 11 inches ?

The walls are six inches thick. Just measured it. Between 6 and 9 inches only for sure.

tomato will do the same, both dd-wrt & tomato can access optware packages, 1k+ of them.

Yep. That should do.

5ghz is mostly useless if you have 3 walls to traverse. Better if you are in the same room or 1 wall max.

In that case, not needed! Single band should do

if you have an android device, download inssider and see how many neighbouring networks are around and what signal level they have, networks over -80dbm you can ignore. Ones in the 50s will be problematic. But the thing is they have to be operating at the same thing as you. Otherwise you kinda manage ok but performance will not be consistent.

"Yoda" is the network I am connected to. The neighbouring networks are above -80 so I guess it should not be a problem right? ( I took this reading using WI-Fi Analyzer app standing 1 feet away from my router)

You've not mentioned what your intended usage will be. Just basic browsing & YT or movie streaming. Number of clients etc. What kind of clients ? low powered ie mobiles or laptops.

Mostly basic browsing, YT and movie streaming only. But would love to experiment with steaming form my External hard disk via the WLAN etc. But not sure if I am expecting too much again. The maximum number of clients at a point in my house would be 4-5 devices (1 laptop, 1 tablet, 3 mobile phones. Nothing else as of now).

Did you have a wifi router before, mention the model# and what its performance wa slike. This will serve as a benchmark of sorts to gauge range and meet if not exceed expectations.

I have a modem-router. Basic Beetel 450BX1 that came along with BSNL broadband. I get decent signal around the house. In the room that is 3 walls away(bedroom), this is the signal strength I get:

Is this good enough ? (I took this reading using Wi-Fi analyzer app on a Moto G). And performance-wise, I didnt have any issues. Found it quite decent actually. But not sure if I utilized my BSNL connection optimally (4 Mbps plan)

Thanks a lot for reading and helping blr_p! Looking forward to your recommendations!

 

[Doubleseven]

Dual band is not possible in your budget. The lowest priced dual band options are not bound to be very good.

I picked up a Netgear JNR3210 a few days ago, to be used as an access point. I had a couple of 5dBi antennae laying around, and the signal is stronger than the much more expensive WNDR3700 (in use as my main router, but no external antennae). The 3700 is on the third floor and the 3210 on the first floor. I get -70dBm or better from the 3210 three floors up, whereas the 3700 is barely ticking at -80dBm three floors down.

DD-WRT is a no-no for these routers though, but the stock firmware is nice enough for me.

Thanks a lot for your reply cranky! I will keep the Netgear JNR3210 in mind. Looks like it would be within my budget (saw that it costs 3100 in flipkart).

 

[Rockfella]

TP Link is a very under-rated brand.

 

[cranky]

TP link and Tenda, along with a few others, do not comply with WiFi Alliance certification because of absence of fallback to 20Mhz to enforce good neighbor behaviour. Not all their routers are certified, so check that yours is.

@TS, if you measure signal strength 1 foot away it is useless. You should measure it at the actual usage location where your current router begins to fall off and others become stronger Also, note that if you are only using it for browsing, falling back to 54mbps may give you better coverage at the expense of throughput. I was using the same technique to cover three floors with one router.

I got the router for lower than that, FK was running an exchange scheme so I got around 450 for my old and somewhat aging Asus unit.

 

[Doubleseven]

@TS, if you measure signal strength 1 foot away it is useless. You should measure it at the actual usage location where your current router begins to fall off and others become stronger Also, note that if you are only using it for browsing, falling back to 54mbps may give you better coverage at the expense of throughput. I was using the same technique to cover three floors with one router.

Ah ok . I will go home tonight and get readings from my corner room where my signal usually drops off

I got the router for lower than that, FK was running an exchange scheme so I got around 450 for my old and somewhat aging Asus unit.

I will check ebay too. Lets see how much it costs there.

 

[blr_p]

The walls are six inches thick. Just measured it. Between 6 and 9 inches only for sure.

If your house was constructed within the last ten years it will be 6 inches. Why does this matter ?

3 x 6 inch walls is less than 2 x 11 inch walls but 3 x 9 inch walls will be harder for 2.4Ghz

2 x 6 inch walls = 1 x 11 inch for 5Ghz

You can get a signal beyond but how consistently it works depends on what you need to do.

"Yoda" is the network I am connected to. The neighbouring networks are above -80 so I guess it should not be a problem right?

Did not see all the networks in that grab but if there aren't any in the 50-60db range you should be ok as far as interference from neighbours is concerned.

Mostly basic browsing, YT and movie streaming only. But would love to experiment with steaming form my External hard disk via the WLAN etc. But not sure if I am expecting too much again. The maximum number of clients at a point in my house would be 4-5 devices (1 laptop, 1 tablet, 3 mobile phones. Nothing else as of now).

Which client you use at the end of 3 walls matters. The laptop is the most capable of all the other clients. It will be able to handle more than one stream compared to the mobile clients which are all single stream. This is important to realise because it does not matter how many streams your router can put out, these mobile clients will only catch one stream. They will see a better signal and that's it.

If you want to stream movies then movie bitrate becomes a factor. SD should work fine, HD will just about work and anything above HD will be problematic.

You could try streaming now with your existing setup and DLNA to see how well it works.

external HDD--->pc/laptop (with dlna server)---ethernet(important this is wired only)---->wifi-router ))))) wifi clients with DLNA (bubble Upnp from playstore) installed

DLNA is better than windows file sharing as its protocol (HTTP) has less overhead compared to SMB.

I have a modem-router. Basic Beetel 450BX1 that came along with BSNL broadband. I get decent signal around the house. In the room that is 3 walls away(bedroom), this is the signal strength I get:

Is this good enough ? (I took this reading using Wi-Fi analyzer app on a Moto G). And performance-wise, I didnt have any issues. Found it quite decent actually. But not sure if I utilized my BSNL connection optimally (4 Mbps plan)

-80dbm is a borderline signal level, usually 60-70dbm is the sweetspot where you can expect consistent performance from most clients. wifi isn't the bottleneck here, at closer ranges it should be able to handle at least 15Mbs.

If its acceptable as you say, then why not try pushing it some more and streaming something heavier than YT to see how it copes.

You should walk around the house and check what the levels are like, is -80 is the lowest you see ?

Why don't you conduct a similar test with your laptop using inssider. current version is pay now for pc, but the previous version was free. Found it here. Will be interesting to see what signal level the laptop registers at 3 walls away and compare with moto g.

 

[Doubleseven]

If your house was constructed within the last ten years it will be 6 inches. Why does this matter ?

3 x 6 inch walls is less than 2 x 11 inch walls but 3 x 9 inch walls will be harder for 2.4Ghz

2 x 6 inch walls = 1 x 11 inch for 5Ghz

You can get a signal beyond but how consistently it works depends on what you need to do.

Got it! I think it is 3 walls x 6 inches each for sure.

Did not see all the networks in that grab but if there aren't any in the 50-60db range you should be ok as far as interference from neighbours is concerned.

I think interference is not an issue. There are no networks in the 50-60 db range even in the farthest point of use

If you want to stream movies then movie bitrate becomes a factor. SD should work fine, HD will just about work and anything above HD will be problematic. You could try streaming now with your existing setup and DLNA to see how well it works.

external HDD--->pc/laptop (with dlna server)---ethernet(important this is wired only)---->wifi-router ))))) wifi clients with DLNA (bubble Upnp from playstore) installed

DLNA is better than windows file sharing as its protocol (HTTP) has less overhead compared to SMB.

This went over my head! Assume streaming is not important in the farthest point (the room with 3 walls in between from the router) because my dad uses his tablet there and he watches only YouTube maximum.

-80dbm is a borderline signal level, usually 60-70dbm is the sweetspot where you can expect consistent performance from most clients. wifi isn't the bottleneck here, at closer ranges it should be able to handle at least 15Mbs.

Noted.

You should walk around the house and check what the levels are like, is -80 is the lowest you see ? Why don't you conduct a similar test with your laptop using inssider. current version is pay now for pc, but the previous version was free. Found it here. Will be interesting to see what signal level the laptop registers at 3 walls away and compare with moto g.

Thanks for this! I will do this and circle back tomorrow with the data

Thanks a lot for your patience and help blr_p! Much appreciated!

Considering this is the use case scenrio (And assuming you might have sufficient data), any recommendations that would fit my budget? Please advice.

 

[Doubleseven]

@TS, if you measure signal strength 1 foot away it is useless. You should measure it at the actual usage location where your current router begins to fall off and others become stronger Also, note that if you are only using it for browsing, falling back to 54mbps may give you better coverage at the expense of throughput. I was using the same technique to cover three floors with one router.

Here is the screen grab from Wi Fi Analyser at the farthest point:

 

[blr_p]

This went over my head! Assume streaming is not important in the farthest point (the room with 3 walls in between from the router) because my dad uses his tablet there and he watches only YouTube maximum.

You said..

Mostly basic browsing, YT and movie streaming only. But would love to experiment with steaming form my External hard disk via the WLAN etc. ​

What i described above was a way to do just that with your existing equipment.

setting up a dlna server (linked to in previous post) on your laptop, hooking up the external HDD to laptop, then connecting your laptop to the router via ethernet and then streaming your movies to your tab or mobile at other points in the house.

Considering this is the use case scenrio (And assuming you might have sufficient data), any recommendations that would fit my budget? Please advice.

Want to see what you can achieve with your existing equipment and what you cannot do. This will serve as a guide as to what to get. Trying to figure out why you want a new router to begin with. If you are satisfied with the signal you get at the farthest point already.

 

[Doubleseven]

Want to see what you can achieve with your existing equipment and what you cannot do. This will serve as a guide as to what to get. Trying to figure out why you want a new router to begin with. If you are satisfied with the signal you get at the farthest point already.

I have a modem-router. Can I use it as a router alone? Is that possible? Then there is no reason to buy

 

[blr_p]

ok, i re-read the first line, no, you can't use a modem-router with ACT.

But you can try try streaming off your external HDD with what you have currently. How well does it work ?

Whether the 450bx is actually enough to do this. If so then there is a good chance off getting what you want within budget.

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

Apparently bridge mode might make the modem-router work : http://enitinkumar.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/configure-beetel-wifiadsl2router-to-use-tikonawimax/

 

[blr_p]

Question is how or where does the NAT get done ? It does not get done at all as NAT is only done off the adsl port. But now the internet cable is coming into one of the regular LAN ports. There is no WAN ethernet port on this device. The router as is is like a switch. So its no different to connecting the Tikona cable directly to your laptop. Now i'd think he could connect only one device at a time. But he says..

keep in mind, tikona has something device associated list too, first it allows you to connect through limited number of devices to internet at a time, like for me it’s just 2. Secondly, if you have tried to access internet through multiple devices, after some time it tells max limit reached for associated devices.
​

So he can connect his laptop and one mobile via wifi and that's it. Tikona must have a dhcp server on their end for additional clients. So all this is doing is allowing clients to connect to that external dhcp server.

He's converted his router-modem into a switch with wifi. There is no way to bind that ethernet port and turn it into a WAN port as you can't modify the firmware. Not quite the same thing as a router and rather limited.

No harm in trying, lets see if ACT will issue more than one IP addr via dhcp. What i think will happen is the moment the second device issues a dhcp request it will boot out the first or just refuse based on MAC binding.

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

He's converted his router-modem into a switch with wifi.

Yes exactly. I don't know how the ACT broadband setup is, but fiber connections I've used had a fiber 'modem' as the CPE. Bridging would put this modem in charge of DHCP and NAT. This is also how airtel configures all their ADSL connections by default. I think the only downside is that port-forwarding becomes a nuisance.

 

[Doubleseven]

But you can try try streaming off your external HDD with what you have currently. How well does it work ? Whether the 450bx is actually enough to do this. If so then there is a good chance off getting what you want within budget.

I tried this. Exactly the same setup you mentioned ( Laptop connected to 450 bx1 modem-router using ethernet -> DLNA using Windows Media Player (I was not able to get the tool you suggested to work) -> Stream to from external hard disk(connected to laptop) to Moto G using Bubble Upnp. Streamed 720p video content from the external hard disk to the phone via laptop and it worked very well. No issues at all with the quality even in the room which is 3 walls away (which was surprising).

Also, installed Inssider on my laptop and captured signal strength in the room that is 3 walls away. Here is the screengrab:

Thanks!

 

[blr_p]

Yes exactly. I don't know how the ACT broadband setup is, but fiber connections I've used had a fiber 'modem' as the CPE. Bridging would put this modem in charge of DHCP and NAT. This is also how airtel configures all their ADSL connections by default. I think the only downside is that port-forwarding becomes a nuisance.

The bridge mode is happening internally in the fiber 'modem as in a adsl-wifi-router. Or setting up a plain adsl-router in bridge mode to bypass the modems's router, turning the modem into an ADSL to ethernet interface and then feeding into a wifi router were the NAT occurs.

There is no NAT taking place with a reverse adsl-router config. Unless you pay ACT to reliably do dhcp for more than one device, but this will be pricey in the long run.

I tried this. Exactly the same setup you mentioned ( Laptop connected to 450 bx1 modem-router using ethernet -> DLNA using Windows Media Player (I was not able to get the tool you suggested to work) -> Stream to from external hard disk(connected to laptop) to Moto G using Bubble Upnp. Streamed 720p video content from the external hard disk to the phone via laptop and it worked very well. No issues at all with the quality even in the room which is 3 walls away (which was surprising).

g has a narrower channel width than n which translates into little more range.

Files you streamed did not peak beyond your present wifi bandwidth. Getting a better router won't help matters here too much.

Also, installed Inssider on my laptop and captured signal strength in the room that is 3 walls away. Here is the screengrab:

Thanks!

So there is about a 4dB difference between your laptop & moto G, to be expected. What i did not notice in the earlier shot was there is another network that is similar power to yours with its name missing. Everybody is playing in their own channel for now. You have room for one more network to appear.

These are your options:
- try to find out how many clients ACT will allow you if more than one for the same price as mentioned in the blog post.
- try to get an ACT plan that inclues a free wifi router.
- put up a WTB thread for a used N13.
- pick up a asus n12 from flipkart.

Thing is you're paying for just a marginal improvement in performance over your current setup. Your mobile clients are all locked to N150 so a N300 router gets you just more signal bars and very little speed increase over g.

 

[Doubleseven]

- try to find out how many clients ACT will allow you if more than one for the same price as mentioned in the blog post.

Did not understand this sorry!

- try to get an ACT plan that inclues a free wifi router.

The installation guy said they charge extra for router so I told him I will buy one myself!

- pick up a asus n12 from flipkart.

Out of stock in flipkart. Any other alternatives?

Thing is you're paying for just a marginal improvement in performance over your current setup. Your mobile clients are all locked to N150 so a N300 router gets you just more signal bars and very little speed increase over g.

Ah ok. I understand. "Locked into N150" means what?