Best wireless fibre router

Any advice on which wireless router to get? Recently moved to PlusNet unlimited fibre - which is going well by the way - and wondered about getting a router with a little more wireless throughput.

Currently using a Billion 7800n but this has no 5 Ghz capability.

In the house we have: 1 television, a Squeezebox Touch, Sky on demand box, PS3, 2 laptops, 2 iPads and various smart phones all with wireless access. Oh and 1 wired desktop.

Good coverage is essential as prior to the Billion had quite a dead spot in my home office upstairs.

Thanks.

You need to buy a top end 802.11ac router, not only does this give you ac wifi, it also gives you excellent coverage on 802.11 b/g/n wifi due to the hi powered transmitters found in ac routers. I'm using the Netgear R6300 and its amazing,,,excellent wifi coverage on all bands. Other highly rated ac routers include Linksys EA6500 and Asus RT-AC66U...you won't be disappointed with any of these

Have a look at the Netgear R6300 reviews on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B008KX64OK/r...

Are there any particular requirements that make a router better for a fibre connection rather than for a non-fibre connection?

Not really, a top end router will work just as well on adsl or cable as it will on fibre. Obviously using a standalone router on adsl requires a pppoa>pppoe bridge modem as well. I'm using a draytek vigor 120v2 connected to the netgear R6300 and everything works flawlessly

Edited by deleted (Mon 17-Jun-13 14:33:21)

In reply to a post by gomezz:

Are there any particular requirements that make a router better for a fibre connection rather than for a non-fibre connection?

Umm, they support an EWAN connection from an OR/Virgin modem? And because there is more bandwidth available the router needs to be able support well a significant number of simultaneous wireless streams: video downloads, p2p video, gaming and so on.

Yes?

In reply to a post by dehavillandrfc:

Umm, they support an EWAN connection from an OR/Virgin modem? And because there is more bandwidth available the router needs to be able support well a significant number of simultaneous wireless streams: video downloads, p2p video, gaming and so on.

And have a sufficiently fast CPU to not screw up 80megabit or faster WAN speeds. Most olde ADSL2/cable router vintage have problems over 30meg.

But I thought all domestic routers were rated to run at 100Mbps? Or is that only LAN-side?

The 100BaseTX is the speed of the switch (many are Gigabit switches these days) but to drive the WAN connection at the full speed (up to approx 80Mb/s) requires a routed throughput of at least 80Mb/s.

Old style ADSL routers generally struggle at this. Note that this has nothing to do with the wireless speed or the LAN speed - this isnt using the routing features.

Just to add to what greenglide says, what we commonly call a router is usually an ADSL router, which contains least three (logical) pieces of kit in one box: modem, router and Ethernet switch. A fourth possible component is a wireless access point.

It's the router part he is talking about.

In reply to a post by gomezz:

But I thought all domestic routers were rated to run at 100Mbps? Or is that only LAN-side?

My ASUS has 4 ethernet ports that run at 1000 megabit/sec (Gigabit).

Also this site reports my router can handle 400megabit/sec from WAN to LAN, along with others:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/bar

However as we know from a poster in the fibre forum, not all routers can do that speed with the PPPoE protocol required by BT wholesale. One forum poster in the Fibre forum was trying to find a router that could keep up with 300megabit FTTP services, pretty much all routers couldn't do it once PPPoE was required.

I use a Netgear R6300 and love it. My smart TV, three laptops and two desktops can all be connected and downloading/streaming at the same time and it doesn't falter. All the Ethernet ports are Gb connections and it's ready for AC. A little pricey, but I managed to get mine in a sale at £160 and also had a £20 discount .

Currently 300Mbps on my laptop on 5GHz.

It doubles the speed of the 2.4GHz range by using more than one channel (up to 450Mbps), whilst on 5GHz it's up to 1300Mbps - both limited by your wireless card capability of course.

Edit - Just seen it here for £128 (it's the PES version rather than the UKS, but I believe it's still OK - just has a Euro plug so you need an adapter............ ) may want to do a little more homework before purchasing though.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Netgear-Deutschland-GmbH-R63...

Edited by Garyilka (Thu 20-Jun-13 02:13:05)

I would suggest the ASUS RT-N66U. By all accounts this certainly outstrips the wireless capability of the BT Hub and perhaps even Virgin's Superhub2. It also has USB connectivity, simultaneous dual band and all the facilities you would expect of a top-notch wireless router.

Nowadays you need gigabit ethernet. When BT Openreach catches up with Virgin 120Mb fibre that will certainly be the case. 100Mb is not enough and is certainly not future-proofed.

Thanks everybody for your replies - its much appreciated. So it looks like an ASUS - Netgear shootout. I am a little prejudiced against Netgear as I've had their kit fail on me a few times, and I've never had any ASUS gear so I might go with them. We shall see...

Not forgetting the TP-LINK TL-WDR4300 as mentioned here http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/dslrouter/t/4238229...

I would recommend the Asus as well. Having had a variety of routers, this has performed very well.

I actually want the new Fritz!Box but it appears not to be released for another 6 months or so.

Steve

In reply to a post by dehavillandrfc:

Thanks everybody for your replies - its much appreciated. So it looks like an ASUS - Netgear shootout. I am a little prejudiced against Netgear as I've had their kit fail on me a few times, and I've never had any ASUS gear so I might go with them. We shall see...

The Netgear R6300 can be bought for 107 euros (~£90) delivered from Amazon Germany, this is an absolute bargain considering the same router costs ~ £180 in UK!!! Only inconvenience is that you need a 2 pin > 3 pin adaptor. The R6300 is a far superior router to the Asus RT-N66U (£110), not only because it has 802.11 ac wifi as well, but also it has higher powered transmitters so you get better range on all wifi bands eg 802.11 b/g/n/ac. I suggest you buy this from Amazon Germany, if you're not happy with it then return it to Amazon for a full refund...i believe Amazon (uk & de) now offer instant refunds with free returns. No brainer really
http://www.amazon.de/Netgear-Gigabit-802-11ac-Dual-B...

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

The Netgear R6300 can be bought for 107 euros (~£90) delivered from Amazon Germany, this is an absolute bargain considering the same router costs ~ £180 in UK!!! Only inconvenience is that you need a 2 pin > 3 pin adaptor. The R6300 is a far superior router to the Asus RT-N66U (£110), not only because it has 802.11 ac wifi as well, but also it has higher powered transmitters so you get better range on all wifi bands eg 802.11 b/g/n/ac.

You may not know that you can tweak the power output on the RT-N66U but only to the legal maximum. But buying a German router may make you power output higher than UK maximum causing others issues and being against the law.

The R6300 sounds good if you need AC WiFi but hardly anything can use it yet, you need AC in the laptops, smartphones, TVs, bluray players etc.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

You may not know that you can tweak the power output on the RT-N66U but only to the legal maximum. But buying a German router may make you power output higher than UK maximum causing others issues and being against the law.

The R6300 sounds good if you need AC WiFi but hardly anything can use it yet, you need AC in the laptops, smartphones, TVs, bluray players etc.

I have bought routers (standalone) from Germany before, they are EXACTLY the same as UK spec except that it has a 2 pin plug instead of 3...UK and Germany have the same wifi regulations so no rules are broken.

The R6300 (and other AC routers) offer superior performance on b/g/n compared to wifi N routers. This is simply because it uses higher powered amplifiers without breaking any wifi regs. So it makes sense to buy a top end AC router such as the R6300 which is cheaper (if bought from Amazon DE) than one of the best N routers, the Asus RT-N66U. The Asus is very good....the Netgear is even better in performance and price

also i'm using this 802.11 AC pci card in my desktop and its amazing...just like having your pc hardwired to the modem - pc connects @ 1.3 gbps
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-PCE-AC66-1300Mbps-Wirel...

That's only EUR 79,90 in Deutschland

The NetGear has some pretty damning reviews of Amazon with regards to dropped connections and wireless coverage....

In reply to a post by boxst:

The NetGear has some pretty damning reviews of Amazon with regards to dropped connections and wireless coverage....

That's because on Amazon UK the new-ish Netgear D6300 has been lumped in together with the R6300 and most of the poor reviews refer to the D6300 (modem/router combo).

Have a look on Amazon US & Germany for R6300 reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Wireless-Router-Gigabi...
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js...

Edited by deleted (Sat 29-Jun-13 19:05:51)

Post deleted by Sadoldman