home router

I bought a Motorola Surfboard SBG6580 DICSIS 3.0, wireless cable modem and gigabit router hoping to kill several birds with one stone. Increase my speed with the DOCSIS 3 connection to Comcast, improve my range and lastly increase my reliability. The DocSIS part works and the rest is rubbish in a home settling that is desirous of wireless communication. Don't need no stinking cables runnin to my Samsung smart tv, 'cause after all , it is smart. So I purchase a wireless range extender. If you require any form of network speed, this device from hell is your nemesis. You now have an access point using a portion of your network pipe selling out increasingly smaller , slower chunks to your devices. Junk the range extender, turn off the wireless on the SBG6580, but leave it as the modem, purchased a new Asus AC2400 RT-AC87R dual-band gigabit router. Setup was in less than 10 minutes, range is amazing, absolutely no reliability issues. Upgraded to Comcast's 50mb service and have tested consistently at 42 and up on my Galaxy 4, original Kindle Fire and on my Samsung tv My Chromecast works pretty well now too.

I understand why they incorporate routers into modems these days, but I hate it all the same.

I'm in the market for a new wireless solution at home as well. I'm currently running 2 old Linksys WRT54G's with DD-WRT on them, 1 setup as a router and the other I'm just using as a WAP on the backside of my house. The wireless range isn't as good as I'd like (low signal in my bedroom) and I need more speed now then the old G stuff can give me now that I'm doing a lot more stuff internally than I used to.

I've pretty much given up on Linksys/Cisco. Still like both Netgear and Asus stuff around the $230 mark. Buffalo's products used to be good, but I haven't checked them out since they re-entered the wireless market. May be worth considering new WLAN adapters, too. Mine are all pretty new, but I also can't help noticing that my Galaxy S4 gets better range and reception.

Range extenders do tend to blow unless you're using it as a bridge (line a cisco aeronet bridge) only. Best bet is to use a product (like you bought) with great reviews and decent range built in that does at least N (or AC). Do the comcast modems use only G or did they allow N? When I worked on them they used G and would allow free access so we had to turn them off (omfg so annoying, people in nursing homes were using our access points and when we shut it off, the home complained - whole story). Always turn off the built in wifi and use something better, unless you're really looking to save a few $$$. Oh, and since Comcast started pushing docsis 3 out to their modems, they did get a bit better overall. Just the view they have into the suckers is incredible. LOOOOOOOOOOVE comcast business class, beats the rest hands down for service. For home, product is good, service stinks last time I called, well, when I had internet.

So a while back I got wind of a promotion to get a free wireless router if you attend a webinar. Later find out the thing is worth almost a grand. We now use it as our main wireless in our corporate office. The unit is pretty damn cool, but I doubt I would be able to convince my partners to spend the money to buy more.

https://meraki.cisco.com/

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Originally Posted by Deity

So a while back I got wind of a promotion to get a free wireless router if you attend a webinar. Later find out the thing is worth almost a grand. We now use it as our main wireless in our corporate office. The unit is pretty damn cool, but I doubt I would be able to convince my partners to spend the money to buy more.

https://meraki.cisco.com/

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/agree

Cisco stuff is great assuming you get the right product for the right job. Ex: the old 1100 AP that only did G, we have a huge building and they wanted the ability of 2-3 3300's per floor and a controller, but sprung for 2 1100's for each floor. When that didn't work, we scrapped them and got what we needed in the 1st darned place. Now that said, some sites using the 800 series SB routers (think similar to better hardware than a linksys with real cisco IOS ability) with wifi were getting crappy reception as nursing homes are frequently ancient and are forts vs WIFI. Stick an 1100 POS in that office and lo and behold it was the best thing ever.

All about getting the right tool for the job. Shame Cisco costs so dammed much. Honestly one day someone will come along with a similar product and much cheaper prices that will topple that empire, but they will probably just buy them.

I'd agree that Cisco's commercial stuff remains good, but I was really thinking about their SOHO line, which really is pretty dreadful. For a home system, I'd think that something like an Asus RT-AC68U, or Netgear R7500-100NAS are good routers. Several routers in this sort of price range offer excellent speed and coverage, QOS, and simple setup and configuration.

I never worked with the soho stuff, though looking over it, I am guessing that these are the modem/router units? I had a few smaller vendors that used cisco units for broadband modems, seemed OK enough as they were able to gain remote access over them compared to most podunk DSL/Cable providers. Made life tough for me as I would as the user to reboot the "cisco" and I'd get, "Which one?" Still, any combo modem/whatever is usually something that does the job but offers zero flexibility.

For home stuff, I use whatever is cheap that works. Use linksys now because I had some laying about. Honestly I've never had any issues with them and have found them to0 be fairly reliable for home use, albeit a bit slow sometimes. But then again, cisco is the king of making the hardware do ONLY what it needs to do. They love limited shelf life, it's their bread n butter.

Used a dlink that someone sent to me at work and the boss told me to take it home. Didn't work worth a poop for me as laptops would need reboot before they would connect after sleeping and my iphone would never connect to wireless. Wired worked great, just wifi was goofy.

Anywho, You're dead on about the asus stuff. All they make is performance everything. You honestly can't go wrong buying their products for home use. IMO.

Thanks for the info here Curious, anything on the horizon or is now a decent time to buy? Im looking to upgrade to AC for my home network. Thanks

EDIT: Following up, I ended up picking up the Netgear R7000 from New Egg while they were offering the Motorola SB6141 combo... totally happy with the router, working great on all bands. Thanks downloads.

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Originally Posted by linkjassyoa

Thanks for the info here Curious, anything on the horizon or is now a decent time to buy? Im looking to upgrade to AC for my home network. Thanks

EDIT: Following up, I ended up picking up the Netgear R7000 from New Egg while they were offering the Motorola SB6141 combo... totally happy with the router, working great on all bands. Thanks downloads.

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Netgear is always a half decent choice. Cool that its working well. They don't make crap, good choice.

Slow to the party...
I have the Motorola that started this thread. I actually got reasonably decent range with it, but I had it sitting on a shelf near the ceiling in the center of my house. Then later I configured an older Netgear router into an AP-only only device, set the same SSID and security but different channel, then wired it to the Motorola and sat it at the back end of the house.

One great option is to stalk Amazon and eBay for older Cisco gear. I have a 2106 WLC that I got 2+ years ago for ~$250. I was running 1131s that were dirt-cheap, and then I gradually picked up some 3502i units when people were selling them for $70. The 3502i is a top-notch 802.11n AP. I paired them up with a 2970G switch (~$120) and set them in H-REAP mode to get around the fact that the 2106 only has 100mbps ports.

When I finally decide I need to move to 802.11ac I'll probably do Ubiquiti's distributed AP solution.

I also use Motorola Surfboard but I'll have to change it. I'll definitely try Netgear R7000! Thanks for recommendation!

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Originally Posted by FatalException0E

Slow to the party...
I have the Motorola that started this thread. I actually got reasonably decent range with it, but I had it sitting on a shelf near the ceiling in the center of my house. Then later I configured an older Netgear router into an AP-only only device, set the same SSID and security but different channel, then wired it to the Motorola and sat it at the back end of the house.

One great option is to stalk Amazon and eBay for older Cisco gear. I have a 2106 WLC that I got 2+ years ago for ~$250. I was running 1131s that were dirt-cheap, and then I gradually picked up some 3502i units when people were selling them for $70. The 3502i is a top-notch 802.11n AP. I paired them up with a 2970G switch (~$120) and set them in H-REAP mode to get around the fact that the 2106 only has 100mbps ports.

When I finally decide I need to move to 802.11ac I'll probably do Ubiquiti's distributed AP solution.

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Well holy shit Fatal, you're still alive! Been awhile. Getting any tube time on the Guadalupe these days?

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Originally Posted by slgrieb

Well holy shit Fatal, you're still alive! Been awhile. Getting any tube time on the Guadalupe these days?

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That post of his is a year old. But yeah, hope he's doing okay.