Wireless router question

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white92coupe

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I'm possibly in the market for a new router, as it has been 10+ years since I bought a new one. What would your recommendations be for video/TV streaming and surfing. I'm not brand loyal at this point as I've had both Linksys and Netgear, and have been happy with both overall. When I do speed test straight from the modem I get close to the speed I'm paying for, but streaming can be choppy and slow at time. Especially when streaming on the Fox Sports Go app.

Thanks in advance.
 

NightShade

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I have a Netgear NightHawk x6 --- R8000

There was a kinda bad bug in it that allowed outside access but it was fixed pretty fast once it was discovered and has received some updates as time has passed. It was first made available around june 2014 but even at 3 years old it is still VERY relevant for use. The bad news is that unless the devices you are going to use support the faster speeds it's not worth a whole lot. Most newer devices will support 802.11AC but a lot of things that are two or three years old will not without an upgrade. If you live in an area with a lot of neighbors a BIG advantage is the 5Ghz spectrum. Where I am sitting at right now 15 different AP's are available on 2.4Ghz but only 5 are available on the 5Ghz so devices that use it do not have to compete with as many other signals to transfer data.

I only use it as a wireless AP since I have an OPNsense setup which can handle MUCH more than any router like a netgear but it also uses more power and is more expensive. If you have a little computer background and an old 64bit intel based pc that you don't mind sacrificing it is worth doing for a few of the features that are available, the caching of files can help lower your outside bandwidth use/speed up the serving of pages that are used often. The DNS server settings can be setup to do the same thing, I have even been able to setup a DNS based ad filter on it as well which also reduces the bandwidth even more while also decreasing some load times. It can be a little funky every once in awhile but a simple reboot just like anything else and it's up and running with no issues. Mine has been up 15 days right now but it would have been closer to 90 if I had not upgraded the software as was the previous reboot.

And even though cox has been pushing their "whole home" fast wireless internet, you can easily buy mesh network routers that do the same thing and not have them bloodletting you for the rest of your life.
 

John6185

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You could go with flashrouters.com, they're ready for a VPN and if you alreally have a VPN provider they'll load it on the router for your. Then all your computers, laptops etc in the house are protected.
 

NightShade

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Going to chime in here again and suggest that if you are willing to spend a little extra to have a LOT better wifi connectivity I would actually suggest setting up something with PfSense or OpnSense or Smoothwall and then use something like the UniFi AP AC Pro https://www.ubnt.com/products/#unifi as the wireless access point. The larger the house is the more you can add and setup, they can work in a MeshNetwork mode but should be able to hand off clients from one to the other very quickly.

Grabbing an Avoton based board with a couple sticks of ram and a hard drive can create a very nice router, then use switches to add as many hard wired clients as you like with the UniFi AP's to hook up wireless clients. It's more expensive to begin with but you can add or replace AP's if you need more coverage or new tech comes out that is vastly superior. The router itself is using software that is updated on a regular basis and can be used with multiple different flavors so if the one you start off with isn't doing what you want then you can change it. The router software can also be easily configured with many things that the linksys and netgear ones just can't handle.

Basically you would be running something that would be at home in a business, school, hospital, or other enterprise type of situation. And if someone wanted to set something of this nature up but are a little put off by it I would be more than happy to help.

And some good reading about the AP I mentioned is available here https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...-realize-how-terrible-consumer-wi-fi-gear-is/ it is a couple years old but is still very relevant.
 

dennishoddy

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News reports out today say the WPA2 protocol that protects Wi-Fi networks has been discovered and could allow hackers to eavesdrop on any devices connected to Wi-Fi.
They have to be within range of your modum though, or be in an area where you access free Wi-Fi.
 

emapples

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Going to chime in here again and suggest that if you are willing to spend a little extra to have a LOT better wifi connectivity I would actually suggest setting up something with PfSense or OpnSense or Smoothwall and then use something like the UniFi AP AC Pro https://www.ubnt.com/products/#unifi as the wireless access point. The larger the house is the more you can add and setup, they can work in a MeshNetwork mode but should be able to hand off clients from one to the other very quickly.

Grabbing an Avoton based board with a couple sticks of ram and a hard drive can create a very nice router, then use switches to add as many hard wired clients as you like with the UniFi AP's to hook up wireless clients. It's more expensive to begin with but you can add or replace AP's if you need more coverage or new tech comes out that is vastly superior. The router itself is using software that is updated on a regular basis and can be used with multiple different flavors so if the one you start off with isn't doing what you want then you can change it. The router software can also be easily configured with many things that the linksys and netgear ones just can't handle.

Basically you would be running something that would be at home in a business, school, hospital, or other enterprise type of situation. And if someone wanted to set something of this nature up but are a little put off by it I would be more than happy to help.

And some good reading about the AP I mentioned is available here https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...-realize-how-terrible-consumer-wi-fi-gear-is/ it is a couple years old but is still very relevant.

I went with a nighthawk x8 R8500, I don’t like the user interface as well as the lynksys products but the raw speed is hard to beat, if you are re on cable make sure you upgrade the modem as well that turned out to be the biggest bottleneck I had
 

emapples

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I get 150 meg down and 12 meg up 33ms ping on my IPad , so I can’t rally complain about he Performance (granted that’s using a server 20 miles away). I get another the same results using a server in Chicago, IL
 

dennishoddy

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I get 150 meg down and 12 meg up 33ms ping on my IPad , so I can’t rally complain about he Performance (granted that’s using a server 20 miles away). I get another the same results using a server in Chicago, IL
Your lucky.
I get 15.84 mps down and 3.9 up. Thats fast compared to my last service.
 

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