Good WiFi Router - Dual Band, WIFI-AC, VPN Pass-through

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Corleone

Corleone

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Hello Guys!

Looks like my old router is gonna die soon. WiFi signal goes of every now and then but, devices connected with cable are unaffected.

I want to buy a new WiFi router with inbuilt VPN pass-through support, WIFI-AC, Dual Band.

I don't have a budget in mind per say but, anything around Rs. 5,000/- should be okay.

Thanks in Advance!
 
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AK3D said:
I gave a recommendation based on your requirements :) .

.

I'd take some of the Amazon in reviews with a pinch of salt given the lack of tech knowledge.
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Yes, of course, no disrespect was intended. Just shared my initial impressions after reading reviews on Amazon.

I'll watch the videos and research more.
 
Corleone said:
Yes, of course, no disrespect was intended. Just shared my initial impressions after reading reviews on Amazon.

I'll watch the videos and research more.
Click to expand...
Appreciate the courtesy, no offense taken or intent assumed!

Funny thing is, I bought this router a while ago and haven't yet had the time to set it up. I have mac filter security, QOS and port forwarding set up on my current Asus RT N13U and will need to shift settings to the new one.

My purpose to buy this was slightly different, I needed
1) Gigabit LAN ports (since I bought a WD MyCloud, and the earlier router doesn't have Gigabit ports). This for backup and network throughput on the LAN.
2) USB3 to download/upload
3) USB3 for remote file access and can do that with networked MyCloud too
4) Better throughput to stream video from my devices to TV
5) Better range

This ticks 1-4 at least, haven't checked about #5 since it's not installed. A note about Asus - I also have a TP-Link ADSL router, and I have to reboot it every few days, whereas with the Asus, had no such issues.
Another thing to share is, this router has the KRACK vulnerability fixed in the latest firmware.
upload_2017-12-23_1-7-2.png
 
AK3D said:
Appreciate the courtesy, no offense taken or intent assumed!

Funny thing is, I bought this router a while ago and haven't yet had the time to set it up. I have mac filter security, QOS and port forwarding set up on my current Asus RT N13U and will need to shift settings to the new one.

My purpose to buy this was slightly different, I needed
1) Gigabit LAN ports (since I bought a WD MyCloud, and the earlier router doesn't have Gigabit ports). This for backup and network throughput on the LAN.
2) USB3 to download/upload
3) USB3 for remote file access and can do that with networked MyCloud too
4) Better throughput to stream video from my devices to TV
5) Better range

This ticks 1-4 at least, haven't checked about #5 since it's not installed. A note about Asus - I also have a TP-Link ADSL router, and I have to reboot it every few days, whereas with the Asus, had no such issues.
Another thing to share is, this router has the KRACK vulnerability fixed in the latest firmware.
View attachment 73237
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure that you will not get any great advantages due to USB3, although YMMV.

Streaming is purely dependent on source. If on Internet, and its 10M or even 50M speeds, I doubt you will be able to get much difference in pure speed vs earlier router. However, if on LAN, and if streaming higher bitrate stuff, it might make a difference.
 
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vivek.krishnan said:
I am pretty sure that you will not get any great advantages due to USB3, although YMMV.

Streaming is purely dependent on source. If on Internet, and its 10M or even 50M speeds, I doubt you will be able to get much difference in pure speed vs earlier router. However, if on LAN, and if streaming higher bitrate stuff, it might make a difference.
Click to expand...

Actually, I did. The USB3 gives a good read/write speed (~40-50mbps Read and ~20-25mbps Write when transferring data from one computer to another, which was one of the purposes of getting a USB3 device).
Flash (Sandisk) Device Write (Dependent on your device)
upload_2017-12-27_15-57-51.png

Flash (Sandisk) Device Read
upload_2017-12-27_15-55-49.png


As a matter of interest, here's this device's copy speed to my PC from the PC USB3 port, as you can see, the speeds are nearly identical.
upload_2017-12-27_16-12-54.png


Sadly however, it doesn't go higher than this speed with my WD MyPassport, which reaches 100MBPS Read/Write on USB3 on the PC ports, but maintains 40/25 R/W on the Asus USB port. Perhaps this router USB3 chipset won't go higher than that.

I used to get less than 10 mbps on my Asus RTN13u (because of the 10/100 LAN interface). The earlier router was a bottleneck for file transfers, because I couldn't go higher than 10mbps on wifi or on LAN, and it was a pain transferring large RAW files between devices.

My streaming needs are local, for LAN, to TV and for file transfer/backups between multiple machines, for which a Gigabit LAN and high wifi speeds are essential.

Corleone said:
Just shared my initial impressions after reading reviews on Amazon.
I'll watch the videos and research more.
Click to expand...

Finally got to setting up the router. I'm pleased to say that this router is performing beyond expectations, no hiccups and no hassles once it's been set up. The 5Ghz range is low (~10-15 meters between walls), but that is expected.

meetdilip said:
Range of ac router is normally less than b/g/n. That's due to technology difference.
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Yes, the 2.4 range is good, while the 5ghz range is low.

allrounder799 said:
https://www.amazon.in/Asus-RT-AC58U...TF8&qid=1514316727&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+ac58u

I have this one. Been using it from 3 months. Performance is stellar. Also has VPN pass through and supports Jio-Fi and any Android Smartphone USB tethering through it's USB port.
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Thanks, I didn't know we could tether a Jiofi through the port!

Couple drawbacks : Download Master (for downloading torrents) not available on this router, will need to figure out if I can use transmission or will have to use the old router in addition to this.
Applying settings reboots the router, kind of a pain if you add a lot of MAC addresses or keep changing settings.
My Asus laptop doesn't connect to the 5G band (I discovered it doesn't have a dual band chip unfortunately!)
 
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More or less what I thought, USB3 is not that big of an advantage, although the gigabit interface is a big plus. Still I am planning to keep this on my list of must haves.
 
allrounder799 said:
I have this one. Been using it from 3 months. Performance is stellar. Also has VPN pass through and supports Jio-Fi and any Android Smartphone USB tethering through it's USB port.
Click to expand...

Can you let me know how you managed to get Jio-Fi working as a modem with the router? I can't seem to get net access through Jio-Fi > Asus Router (USB modem setting).
 
cisco_tech said:
You might need to flash asus-merlin build. It supports USB tethering.
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upload_2017-12-28_2-52-9.png

USB Tethering is already there in the router, but I don't get any internet either via the Router's network tools, or through the PC. I was wondering if anything else needed to be done for net connectivity through a Jiofi.
 
AK3D said:
Can you let me know how you managed to get Jio-Fi working as a modem with the router? I can't seem to get net access through Jio-Fi > Asus Router (USB modem setting).
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I just plugged in my Jio-Fi and the router auto-detected it. No settings required. Although my Jio-Fi is the older model which was available for 3000. This one.
 
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vivek.krishnan said:
I am pretty sure that any android tethering or jiofi would work. Will try to pickup one.
Click to expand...

vivek.krishnan said:
More or less what I thought, USB3 is not that big of an advantage, although the gigabit interface is a big plus. Still I am planning to keep this on my list of must haves.
Click to expand...
USB3 is a big advantage actually, makes a difference when a file is being copied at 8-9MB/S and copying at 40MB/S.
However, I will suggest buying the AC66U instead, there are a couple reasons for this.
1) No dual WAN (I thought this router had it, but it didn't)
2) No Download Master in the USB applications, this was one of the reasons I bought the router, to avoid turning on my computer when downloading.

I have NO complaints about network speeds, uptime etc, since this router is handling all of that beautifully. In hindsight, I'd probably go with the Asus 66U (it doesn't have USB3 - just two USB2 ports), because of the additional capabilities and MerlinWRT support.
If a persons' budget is below 5K, this is a superb router in this price range. If you can extend to the 5-10K mark, there are a couple other good options.
The gigabit ports are doing their job
(as an example - here's doing a backup from my WD NAS) . If you have large files, expect ~90 to 100MB/s consistently . Small files like images go from 10 to 40MB/s (expected behavior).
upload_2018-1-2_12-54-43.png


The WD NAS did have an option for transmission, so I'm OK with the router now. It also supports USB3 backup, so I don't really need USB3 throughput, so that's redundant. Live and learn.

cisco_tech said:
You might need to flash asus-merlin build. It supports USB tethering.
Click to expand...

Apparently Asus routers with broadcom chipsets support MerlinWRT, but this model does not since it's based off an Atheros chipset. Not that this is a big disadvantage, but it has no external firmware support.

allrounder799 said:
I just plugged in my Jio-Fi and the router auto-detected it. No settings required. Although my Jio-Fi is the older model which was available for 3000. This one.
Click to expand...
I have the same Jio Router, it's detected by the router, as is my Android phone for tethering, however I don't get net connectivity.
One question, do you have a WAN router/DSL attached?
 
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