Need Help Selecting Router For Long House In Stupid Neighborhood

[Chubbis1220]

I live in a very long and narrow house, about 2,100 square feet, and in a very congested neighborhood (I can pickup 28 wireless networks just on my phone).

I'm on a 100Mb/s plan, however when upstairs and at the side of my house opposite my router (where I will spend most of my time), and when I'm connected to my wireless extender, I get about 3Mb/s.

There are ten devices connected to the router issued to us by our ISP (which is a bad, single-band router/modem combo, as expected. Thank you Bend Broadband) or to our extender. Two devices will be playing online games at the side of the house opposite the router or streaming movies, and two other devices will be streaming movies.

Unfortunately I can't move my router to a central location, it needs to be downstairs and located at one end of my long, narrow house, because there are no ports for it to connect to anywhere else. I have tried powerline adapters, and sadly they do not function very well with the wiring of my house.

I was thinking maybe a D-Link AC3200 or a Netgear Nighthawk X6S AC3000, but I worry that it's either overkill (especially for a 100Mb/s plan) or that it still won't output a strong enough signal.

Finally, would it be a good idea to use the modem/router combo that we have now as just a modem?

 

[BFG-9000]

The best solution is to run ethernet to at least a pair of APs. 2.4GHz has interference problems with the neighbors because it goes so far, but for 5GHz the problem is primarily signal strength--you have to be close enough to the AP to get any kind of decent speeds. Both are solved with more APs--even 2.4GHz will have enough signal-to-noise close-in to simply overpower the interference (which wouldn't be a problem if everyone used nonoverlapping channels 1, 6 and 11).

If for some reason you won't run ethernet wires (which can even go around the house outside), then look for those expensive Mesh APs which use a different channel for the backhaul connection. Unlike your simple range extender, those have multiple radios so don't cut your bandwidth in half. No helping the fact they also double latency/ping though, as there's no avoiding having to broadcast twice on the way to your device.

Presumably the supplied router is fast enough for your subscribed service. And its built-in 2.4GHz AP should be fine if it only has to handle 1/3 of the house.

 

[Bo Lee]

Powerline transmitters don't work very well. They do make wireless repeaters, you just set them up with your wifi credentials and then plug them into an outlet for power midway to where you want to go. They do fairly well.

 

[kanewolf]

Powerline transmitters don't work very well. They do make wireless repeaters, you just set them up with your wifi credentials and then plug them into an outlet for power midway to where you want to go. They do fairly well.

I will disagree. Powerline networking can work well. It is dependent on the wiring in the house, but it can work well. The latest AV2 standard devices can usually (your mileage may vary) achieve 100Mbit throughput.

 

[Chubbis1220]

I will disagree. Powerline networking can work well. It is dependent on the wiring in the house, but it can work well. The latest AV2 standard devices can usually (your mileage may vary) achieve 100Mbit throughput.

I have tried to use powerline networking, but once I move an adapter up to my room the signal slows to a crawl, or the adapters simply do not connect. I guess the wiring of my house is bad?

If for some reason you won't run ethernet wires (which can even go around the house outside), then look for those expensive Mesh APs which use a different channel for the backhaul connection. Unlike your simple range extender, those have multiple radios so don't cut your bandwidth in half.

Do you have a recommendation? Google WiFi, Eero, Netgear Orbi, or maybe something just a little cheaper?

 

[BFG-9000]

I haven't tried any of them, but I suggest reading this roundup and mashup, plus also the separate one on the ASUS Lyra.

In my experience, powerline needs to have no surge protector filters in between to work well, and even then occasionally seems to suffer unpredictably long latency (much longer than Wifi), perhaps due to what's powered on at the time. I suppose large electric motors such as a furnace fan could feed a lot of noise back into the wiring when running.

Most homes also have two-phase power to make 240v so there's two mostly separate out-of-phase 120v branches--powerline would obviously find it more difficult to transmit across to the other branch when they are only really connected when your electric stove or dryer is on. You could probably move a couple wires around in your breaker box to put both powerline ends on the same branch, as you already have the adapters.

 

[gregjar]

The EX8000 is a range extender (so throughput will be cut unless it consistently negotiates a vacant channel with the main router), while the D-Link AC3200/DIR-890L is underpowered on the DFS channels at no higher than 350 milliwatts. You might consider the ASUS RT-AC3200, since that uniformly delivers 984 mW at both the DFS channels and conventional 5-GHz channels. And if you don't need DFS, you can often get fairly good deals on eBay for the D-Link DIR-880L or TP-Link Archer C3150. Those will give you 900+ mW of output power on 2.4 and 5 GHz. Other good choices with 4x4:4 MIMO would include ASUS' RT-AC86U, RT-AC88U, and RT-AC3100.

If powerline adapters don't work (which is normal, since split-phase breaker boxes give you a 50/50 chance of them working), you could look up the Coaxifi StraightShot on eBay if you have some unused coaxial cable runs. That would pipe Wi-Fi into remote room(s) without any extra routing overhead or power required. In particular, Wi-Fi over coax makes the most sense when 1. most or all Wi-Fi channels in your neighborhood are congested (since Wi-Fi over Wi-Fi via range extenders rely on idle channels to work), and 2. when free space path loss due to distance, or attenuation due to obstructions, is particularly severe.

Modem/router combos are a bad idea from a security vulnerability standpoint and from the standpoint of the respective DOCSIS/DSL/Wi-Fi standards having different release cycles. And at best, most routers deliver actual throughput in the 400 Mbps range, so it's overkill only if you've paid a lot for a router that has mediocre coverage.

 

[Bo Lee]

Powerline transmitters don't work very well. They do make wireless repeaters, you just set them up with your wifi credentials and then plug them into an outlet for power midway to where you want to go. They do fairly well.

I will disagree. Powerline networking can work well. It is dependent on the wiring in the house, but it can work well. The latest AV2 standard devices can usually (your mileage may vary) achieve 100Mbit throughput.

They can under the right conditions. If you have too far of a run on electrical wire they don't work. If you go through a breaker panel, often they won't work. They tend to work well when it is on the same circuit. In most homes, that isn't realistic as they are trying to boost the signal on opposite ends of the house and are on different circuits. For novice users especially, they do not work well. As you say, "it is dependent on the wiring in the house." That statement right there validates my claim. If everything has to be just right, then it isn't user friendly. Wireless repeaters you do not have to worry about that.

 

[gregjar]

Powerline transmitters don't work very well. They do make wireless repeaters, you just set them up with your wifi credentials and then plug them into an outlet for power midway to where you want to go. They do fairly well.

I will disagree. Powerline networking can work well. It is dependent on the wiring in the house, but it can work well. The latest AV2 standard devices can usually (your mileage may vary) achieve 100Mbit throughput.

They can under the right conditions. If you have too far of a run on electrical wire they don't work. If you go through a breaker panel, often they won't work. They tend to work well when it is on the same circuit. In most homes, that isn't realistic as they are trying to boost the signal on opposite ends of the house and are on different circuits. For novice users especially, they do not work well. As you say, "it is dependent on the wiring in the house." That statement right there validates my claim. If everything has to be just right, then it isn't user friendly. Wireless repeaters you do not have to worry about that.

I'd agree FWIW. When I do outdoor antenna drops or any work with cable modems fed from an outdoor tap, there's always a lightning arrester between the outdoor cable run and indoor electronics or cabling. Powerline adapters often won't work behind a surge protector, which isn't ideal in storm-prone areas. And larger houses tend not just to have split-phase breaker boxes, but 2 or more total breaker boxes. A box of Cat5e or even a spool of LMR-400 can be cheaper in the long run versus powerline adapters, considering how often you might replace them due to voltage spikes or obsolescence. PLAs are great if they work, but you have to buy them first to see if they work at all, and run some risk of more expensive hardware damage if there's a power surge.