Suggestions for new Router

Thundyrkatz

Good Monday Morning! Its been a long time since I have bought a new router and I believe that an upgrade would do a lot of good, but I am not sure what is the best match for my modem and or for the devices that I have these days. I am hoping you good people can give me some great suggestions!

The Modem I am using is the ARRIS SURFboard SB6121 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem

This is the Router I am currently using Cisco-Linksys WRT54G2 Wireless-G Broadband Router

Since buying the router We have added several new devices, 4 iphones, direct TV boxes, iPad and 2 Fire Tablets, laptop. Plus the design of the house makes it difficult to get a good signal to all ends, I did put a repeater upstairs which helped in that area, but lately we cant get a great signal even in the same room as the router. I live in a house and the neighbors are not very close like 50' away, so I can see their networks when selecting, but there is no signal strength to them.

I am hoping to spend less then $100 on the new router. Please help, thanks!

a5ehren

The modem is still fine, you won't need to replace it until it breaks or you start getting service over 150mbps from your cable company.

My go-to router recommendation is the TP-Link Archer C7. It usually sells for $90, and will almost certainly be on some kind of sale for Prime Day tomorrow. It is fairly powerful in the 2.4GHz bands, and has 802.11ac for your stuff that supports it.

Thundyrkatz

OK, I think I was maybe leaving too broad a topic to get some helpful advice.

What I am concerned about is that I am not well informed about the way the router and the modem work together for best results. So my modem uses DOCSIS 3.0, which I think is the most current version. But i don't know if that plays well with all of the newer routers?

Also the last time I bought a router there were some really big differences in quality for different brands, Linksys, Netgear and D-link for instance. Is that still the case or are they all of similar quality and compatibility?

So for instance, would this TP-LINK AC1200 Wireless Dual-Band Wi-Fi Router, 5GHz 867Mbps + 2.4GHz 300Mbps (Archer C50) router be able to accomodate all the devices i have on the network or would something a bit more expensive like this ASUS RT-N66U Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router be more up to the task.

a5ehren

That modem will play fine with any decent router, so that isn't a concern. As far as matching to your network traffic, you have a decently sized network - I would definitely look for a more modern 802.11ac router over an older N model just to be sure that the CPU inside can keep up.

There are still some quality differences between brands, but not as much as there used to be. I would probably spring for the C7 over the C50, though.

Thundyrkatz

Thank you a5ehren, a lot of the reviews suggest that there was a major issue with the firmware on that C7, but they are quite old. have you found that issue to be resolved?

Tofystedeth

I've heard good things about the Ubiquiti AirRouter, though I've not used one myself. My own 10 year old WRT54GL is chugging along. Though I have far fewer devices going on simultaneously.

Naphtali

I've had a C7 for over a year and had no issue with it. Really good router. Anything you get should support 801.11ac at the very least though.

mRahmani

DOCSIS only matters for connecting your modem to your ISP, you don't need to worry about matching them that way.

I've had an Asus RT-AC66U since mid-2013 that's been stellar. Outside of updating the firmware on my own, I could count the number of times it's needed a restart on one hand, and has been keeping up with my 300 mbps subsciption very well. It's roughly a mid-range model these days but should do really well for amount of traffic you're talking about, and Amazon has it on sale for $99.99/Prime right now.

Thundyrkatz

Thanks for the recommendations, I think I will give the C7 a try and see how it works. Also thanks mRahmani for the info on DOCSIS, there are so many details these days, its good to know what means what!

a5ehren

Thundyrkatz wrote: »

Thank you a5ehren, a lot of the reviews suggest that there was a major issue with the firmware on that C7, but they are quite old. have you found that issue to be resolved?

I haven't had any notable firmware issues in the 1.5 years that I've had it. Obviously you'll want to update it immediately after getting it, but that's true of any router.

bowen

Most routers from the past 15 years will support at least 100 mbit/sec download/upload speeds.

Wireless G can do up to 54 mbit/sec.

Most DOCSIS modems can push more than 100 mbit, but hardly any commercial cable ISPs offer more than 50 down.

No reason to upgrade unless internally things are suffering (transfers between computers for instance), or, the radios are starting to become shitty (range sucks).

There's dual channel, and N, now, so that's a tangible upgrade benefit, but devices need to support it.

mRahmani

Wireless N is standard on pretty much everything these days, and AC support is ramping up pretty rapidly.

At least in the metro Detroit area, 100+ mbit connections are starting to be the norm. I pay under $100/mo for 300 down and a friend in the core downtown area is on gigabit fiber. At that level, upgrading a modem starts making sense, but for most situations the SB6121 he has should hold up just fine.

Thundyrkatz

So I picked up and installed the C7 router and it is working like a champ *knock on wood*. It was easy to set up and the Firmware was up to date right out of the box and there is a definite improvement in the coverage and speed in my house. Looks like a success! Thanks for all the advice and suggestions!