TP-LINK C2300 vs C3150 vs c5400

[_Amit_]

Hi all,

I am currently using a N300 wireless router from Netgear and it is working well but I recently upgraded from a 100 Mbps connection to a 1Gbps connection and the router is creating a bottleneck.
With speedtest, I get a download speed of ~80 Mbps.
What would you guys suggest looking at the below information:

Use:
1. I have 2 TVs at home: on one I use the Amazon FireStick and the other one is a smart TV which also connects to the internet. I currently do not use internet connection on both the TVs extensively but want to be future ready.
2. About 5-6 smart phones in use at a time. Almost all of them streaming movies from Amazon prime, you tube, etc or used for playing online games like pubg.
3. 1 Desktop PC which has a Gigabit connection. Currently unused but will be used for online gaming.
4. 1 Macbook pro 2017 model and 1 2013 model
5. I am using my Netgear for more than 10 years now and so want the new device to be atleast be usable for half of that period.

Other details:
1. My house is a small apartment with 5-6 rooms and has an area of only 1600 sq feet.
2. The router will be placed in the living room and will have to provide signals across walls to the bedrooms.
3. My new connection is a fiber optic connection and looking at the way things are upgrading, I should be getting higher speeds sooner than expected.

Questions:
1. Looking at the above info, should I consider the Tp-link C2300 or is it better to stretch the budget and go for a c3150 or the c5400? The C3200 with 6 antennas is almost the same price as the C3150 and can be considered too.
2. Considering that the fiber modem provides a speed of 1 Gbps, what speeds can I expect on the wireless front?
Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Amit

 

[kanewolf]

Wireless speeds depend on the client as well as the router. It is also almost impossible to predict WIFI performance. Since you are in an apartment, WIFI on the 2.4Ghz band may be useless because of all the competition from your neighbor's WIFI.
Everything you can, needs to be connected wired. Other devices need to be on 5Ghz because of the congestion in 2.4Ghz.
There is no magic router to make WIFI work in apartments where the neighbors compete.

 

[_Amit_]

Hi Kanewolf,

I do understand that the 5 Ghz would help and that is one of the reasons why I am considering the upgrade.
My questions are related to which model I should go in for as decribed in my original message.

Regards,
Amit

 

[kanewolf]

I don't believe I would spend extra for the bigger numbers. They are generally marketing hype. All of those routers are dual band and will probably perform similarly in the "real world".

Are you limiting yourself to TP-Link because that is the only brand available ?

 

[_Amit_]

Hi kanewolf,

Got it. Does it make sense to go for a triband router? The c3200 is without MU MIMO though.
One of my friends brought a TP-link C7 and his feedback is good and I also read on the internet that TP-link has more features than other routers in the same price range.
I do have access to routers from almost all popular router companies.

Regards,
Amit

 

[kanewolf]

If you aren't limited to TP-Link, then I would recommend you take advantage of a site called SmallNetBuilder.com and the router ranker tool https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/rankers/router/view

Their reviews are very good and you can see that things like 8 antennas don't improve performance. Their #1 router (Netgear R7800) would be my recommendation.

 

[_Amit_]

Hi,

I think I will limit myself to the tplink as the Netgear doesnt seem to have have proper after sales support near where I live.
What would you suggest between the C3150 and the C3200 looking at my needs? Bot the routers are available at the same cost.

Regards,
Amit

 

[bill001g]

I strongly suspect you are being wowed by shiny numbers. Be very careful to not buy something that you can not use.

Just a few examples.
1. Are you willing to manually balance you devices between the 2 5g radios on the tri band router. Does no good to have 2 5g radios if you are going to leave one unused.
2. How many of your end devices support MU-MIMO....it is not a really common feature.
3. How many of your devices support 200mhz channels on 2.4g band. This is a non standard extension of 802.11n and many devices like apple will never support it.
4. How many of your devices can run the QAM1024. This too is a non standard extension of 802.11ac. It also only works when you are very close to the router.
5 How many of your devices have more than 2 antenna.

For most people with the more standard devices a router that claims 1200 or 1450 will be just as fast as the ones with big numbers. Now there are other feature like VPN and NAS performance that routers with faster CPU help but that is a specialized requirement.

You have to become a educated consumer to avoid the marketing hype. You really need to know the total costs especially if it requires you to update the nic cards in your machines to use the fancy features.

 

[_Amit_]

Hi,

I wont completely deny that I am being wooed by the numbers.
I agree that I would not be able to manually toggle between 2 different 5g radios.
The only reason why I am going behind numbers is just to make sure I do not have to spend on a new router very soon in the near future.
I am using my old N300 router for more than a decade now and would have still continued to use it if I would have not got a 1Gbits connection recently. Also, I have a WD My Cloud which is very slow on the 100Mbit of the current router.
I was using some nokia phone when I bought my current router but am still using it till date with my Samsung S7 edge.
The point is, I believe we keep on upgrading the peripherals but the router is seldom upgraded. I may not be using devices with most of the tech you have mentioned today but I may get something which can use these extra features in the future.
This is what I was really thinking.
If you think it would make sense to spend less now and better spend the leftover money on an early (4-5 years) upgrade when some new tech appears, that would make sense too.

Regards,
Amit

 

[bill001g]

I could make so much money if I could predict the future.

There really does not seem to be much coming. Most times you hear about stuff being discussed by the standard committees years before but there is little of interest. Most stuff is like 802.11ad which uses the 60ghz. It has almost no practice use by most people because it will not even pass through a closed door.

Cell phones could easily add more antenna and transmit power but both would require the phone be larger/thicker which seems to not be the "trendy" thing to do.

The only rumored thing that might come out is abandoning 802.11 for wireless completely and going to LTE like cellphone companies use but running it on the same unlicensed 2.4g and 5g bands. This solve many of the roaming and sharing issues but it does not solve the issue of interference from the neighbors. The main sticky point seems to be the cost of the LTE chips because of licensing fees.

I would buy a mid range router for the $100 range and just wait and see what happens.

 

[_Amit_]

I get your point.
So, will it be fine to get the C2300?
I was reading somewhere that 4×4 antennas, which I believe are on c3150 are better than 3X3 antennas.
Frankly, i am not sure what it means.
Secondly, in a perfect world, how much speed will i get on the c2300 on wifi for mt 1Gbits connection?

Regards,
Amit

 

[bill001g]

What it means is 4 antenna on the router paired with 4 antenna on the end device. If the end device only has 2 antenna...which is the most common.. it will do 2x2.

Not anywhere close to what you hope I suspect. Go to the smallnetbuilder previously linked in this thread. Be aware they are testing with devices that support things like 4x4. You would have to dig down to older router that only do say 1200 which is 2x2 or 1450 which is 3x3

 

[_Amit_]

So I believe I am better off with the C2300. Right?

Regards,
Amit