What router should I get?

[XRealX]

Hey guys!I'm looking for a new router for my home. My house is about 90 m². I want the wifi's range at least that big (preferably more).

My internet speed is 30 Mbps (download and upload) though it's possible to upgrade it to 100 Mbps (which I may or may not do in the future).

What router should I get? I'm looking to spend as little money as possible while maintaining a good bang for the buck (aka I don't want to get a piece of shit). Should I get a wifi 6 router or wifi 5 is good enough? At most 5 devices would use the network, but that's pretty rare. Does wifi 6 make any difference at these low speeds?

What about this router? Is the range too small with this one?

I live in Ukraine btw

[SupaKomputa]

30"m is a big house.

Wifi usually designed to work up to 100m on a clear line.

On a dry wall with foam insulation this will be worse, i say only penetrates up to 2 walls.

Without insullation probably up to 4 walls. So you need at least a couple of routers to cover the whole house.

Now you have up to 100mbps internet, a wifi 6 can be more than 1200mbps, so it would be a waste theoretically.

But wifi 6 routers has new technologies that translate to better coverage.

 

Tenda routers are super cheap, i don't know their quality, never have one.

Xiaomi also produces routers, and they are pretty good for the price.

You don't need wifi 6, probably an AC1200 router will do just fine.

[XRealX]

13 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

30"m is a big house.

Wifi usually designed to work up to 100m on a clear line.

On a dry wall with foam insulation this will be worse, i say only penetrates up to 2 walls.

Without insullation probably up to 4 walls. So you need at least a couple of routers to cover the whole house.

Now you have up to 100mbps internet, a wifi 6 can be more than 1200mbps, so it would be a waste theoretically.

But wifi 6 routers has new technologies that translate to better coverage.

 

Tenda routers are super cheap, i don't know their quality, never have one.

Xiaomi also produces routers, and they are pretty good for the price.

You don't need wifi 6, probably an AC1200 router will do just fine.

Really? It's considered big? All it has is 2 bedrooms, a living room, a small hall, bathroom and a small kitchen.

Okay, I see. So wifi 6 could be better, but I guess only if wifi 6 capable devices use it (currently I have none).

 

So wife mesh/extenders will be necessary then. I see.

Thanks!

[SupaKomputa]

58 minutes ago, XRealX said:

Really? It's considered big? All it has is 2 bedrooms, a living room, a small hall, bathroom and a small kitchen.

Okay, I see. So wifi 6 could be better, but I guess only if wifi 6 capable devices use it (currently I have none).

 

So wife mesh/extenders will be necessary then. I see.

Thanks!

Where i live it's huge. haha.

Yeah wifi6 will do, doesn't have to be wifi 6 devices.

Wifi are backward compatible.

You can use extenders or another router in slave mode.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, XRealX said:

Really? It's considered big? All it has is 2 bedrooms, a living room, a small hall, bathroom and a small kitchen.

Okay, I see. So wifi 6 could be better, but I guess only if wifi 6 capable devices use it (currently I have none).

 

So wife mesh/extenders will be necessary then. I see.

Thanks!

I like in a 1300 sq feet home, just over 120 sq meters, for the rest of the world. We have good coverage with one router. BUT its about having the router in the right place. In my case its in my bed room on the top floor of the house. 

 

I have a Synology RT2600AC, which is a WiFi 5 router. WiFi 5 is probably fine, but 6 is technically better. Not sure Id by WiFi 6 just yet, as Intel just released or is releasing a WiFi 6E card. 6E will offer 6Ghz in conjunction with 2.4 and 5Gzh bands. At least in the US, not sure how this is working with the rest of the world. Not sure how 6Ghz is going to do in the real world, but it should support faster speeds. At the very least you should keep it in your mind that WiFi 6 is still evolving as a standard. 

 

You dont want to use extenders they are garbage. What you might want to look in to are power line adapters OR better yet Moca adapters if you have issues with coverage. 

[XRealX]

On 12/3/2020 at 12:54 PM, Donut417 said:

You dont want to use extenders they are garbage. What you might want to look in to are power line adapters OR better yet Moca adapters if you have issues with coverage. 

Would those things work in my house? My internet comes in with just a wire from the street.

I also noticed that my router says that my IP address is PPPoE since I got this new internet. Previously I had shitty satalite internet. 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

[Donut417]

3 hours ago, XRealX said:

Would those things work in my house? My internet comes in with just a wire from the street.

I also noticed that my router says that my IP address is PPPoE since I got this new internet. Previously I had shitty satalite internet. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Power line adapters depend on your home’s electrical wiring and it’s quality as well as a few other things. Moca uses coax, most houses have this ran now days. Moca is faster and more stable than power line adapters most of the time. 

[XRealX]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

Power line adapters depend on your home’s electrical wiring and it’s quality as well as a few other things. Moca uses coax, most houses have this ran now days. Moca is faster and more stable than power line adapters most of the time. 

I do not have coax (cable tv)

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, XRealX said:

I do not have coax (cable tv)

So your home doesn’t have coax ran thru out? If that’s the case you can try power line adapters and see how they work. 

[XRealX]

3 hours ago, Donut417 said:

So your home doesn’t have coax ran thru out? If that’s the case you can try power line adapters and see how they work. 

No coax at all. 

Hmm, not sure if they will work with my old electric wiring, but sure, it's worth a try.

Could I use power line adapters to set up an old router as an extender? 

From what I looked up right now, it seems to me that I would need at least 2 of these

[Donut417]

12 minutes ago, XRealX said:

Could I use power line adapters to set up an old router as an extender? 

You can try to setup the router in AP mode. If all else fails you might have to consider a mesh WiFi system. Netgear, Google, ASUS all have systems available, though they are not cheap. I think my sister spent over $300 on her Google Mesh System. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 hours ago, Donut417 said:

So your home doesn’t have coax ran thru out? If that’s the case you can try power line adapters and see how they work. 

I'd be wary to advise this, it sounds like they might have DSL and powerline is notorious for interfering causing a reduction in your Internet speed or instability.

I'd get a decent router, place it as central as possible and worry about coverage later.  Unless you have money to burn and the ability to run ethernet all over the house, planning is somewhat pointless compared to real-world testing.

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

'd be wary to advise this, it sounds like they might have DSL and powerline is notorious for interfering causing a reduction in your Internet speed or instability.

Good to know. I cant even get DSL at my house. Only coax services. To be honest I wouldn't want DSL, its a dead technology in my opinion. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

18 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Good to know. I cant even get DSL at my house. Only coax services. To be honest I wouldn't want DSL, its a dead technology in my opinion. 

DSL is still big in some countries, its certainly better than nothing.  If the telco is only willing to bring fibre to the street but not the house (there can be wayleave issues to deal and just a lot more expense running fibre to ever property directly), then VDSL to the street cabinet is a huge improvement over ADSL all the way to the exchange.

I'd argue that COAX is almost as dead a technology, as you are still pushing radio signals down copper in either technology.  You can end up with LESS contention on VDSL as every user has a dedicated piece of copper, at the cost that you cannot guarantee what speed you can actually push over each given line, vs COAX where you can but you are directly contending with all your neighbours straight away before you even reach the cabinet.

[Donut417]

42 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

DSL is still big in some countries, its certainly better than nothing.  If the telco is only willing to bring fibre to the street but not the house (there can be wayleave issues to deal and just a lot more expense running fibre to ever property directly), then VDSL to the street cabinet is a huge improvement over ADSL all the way to the exchange.

AT&T has killed aDSL on its network in the US. Those who have it, have it. They will no longer take orders for it. The fact is VDSL is limited to 100Mbps, from all the ads I have seen and most can only get 50 Mbps out of it. My Coax service is 200 Mbps and I can get Gigabit speeds. Upload is shit, but upload is shit on DSL as well. 

 

44 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

'd argue that COAX is almost as dead a technology, as you are still pushing radio signals down copper in either technology.  You can end up with LESS contention on VDSL as every user has a dedicated piece of copper, at the cost that you cannot guarantee what speed you can actually push over each given line, vs COAX where you can but you are directly contending with all your neighbours straight away before you even reach the cabinet.

DSL cant go the same distance as Coax. Its a fact. Thats why the cable companies can push 1 Gbps download thru its entire foot print but VDSL is limited to very slow speeds. Each DOSIS standard keeps pushing the fiber closer and closer. With my providers Node +0 upgrades they are reducing the number of people on each node. ALSO my provider does do Fiber to the home in new construction areas. They just use RFoG. You dont hear about any provider in the US upgrading DSL. You hear a lot of cable provider upgrading to a new Docsis standard. Phone companies here are either trying to squeeze as much as they can out of the copper. They are upgrading to Fiber in select areas or betting on wireless. I can tell you that two major phone providers in the US AT&T and Verizon are effectively killing DSL. Verizon has been selling off its copper network. In the hopes that 5G will take off. AT&T has deployed fiber in select areas but they are also betting on 5G. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

29 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

DSL cant go the same distance as Coax. Its a fact. Thats why the cable companies can push 1 Gbps download thru its entire foot print but VDSL is limited to very slow speeds. Each DOSIS standard keeps pushing the fiber closer and closer. With my providers Node +0 upgrades they are reducing the number of people on each node. ALSO my provider does do Fiber to the home in new construction areas. They just use RFoG. You dont hear about any provider in the US upgrading DSL. You hear a lot of cable provider upgrading to a new Docsis standard. Phone companies here are either trying to squeeze as much as they can out of the copper. They are upgrading to Fiber in select areas or betting on wireless. I can tell you that two major phone providers in the US AT&T and Verizon are effectively killing DSL. Verizon has been selling off its copper network. In the hopes that 5G will take off. AT&T has deployed fiber in select areas but they are also betting on 5G. 

 

Oh absolutely, no denying that COAX is more suitable for broadband, its amazing what they've expanded DOCSIS to achieve.

 

In theory, DSL has been pushed up to Gigabit but only over very very short loops which is largely useless for an existing telephone network.  It could possibly be a cheaper option for high density apartments to avoid the length limits of ethernet cabling and hassle of fitting fibre.

Like it or not, DSL has been invaluable to get broadband to lots of people, myself included.  I'm still a few years away from FTTP, many others its still nowhere in sight.  I know of a friend in Texas where everywhere he goes he is stuck on DSL.

[Donut417]

4 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

  I know of a friend in Texas where everywhere he goes he is stuck on DSL.

Hopefully Not AT&T DSL. Because its pretty clear they are done with DSL at this point. Announcing the end of sale of aDSL is just a nail in the coffin. My guess they are waiting for when 5G is deployed, then they will pull the plug, at least on aDSL and thats what's in the rural areas. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

Hopefully Not AT&T DSL. Because its pretty clear they are done with DSL at this point. Announcing the end of sale of aDSL is just a nail in the coffin. My guess they are waiting for when 5G is deployed, then they will pull the plug, at least on aDSL and thats what's in the rural areas. 

Oh dear, I suspect both him and maybe his parents are indeed on AT&T.  But we've taken this thread WAY off topic now.

[XRealX]

Actually I have fibre. I have seen that the inside of the cable is transparent when the workers of the ISP were setting up my internet. It explains why my internet is rock solid. I have to put in a login and a password in my router settings for my internet to work. 

[Falcon1986]

On 12/2/2020 at 3:37 PM, XRealX said:

My house is about 90 m²

One level or multi-level?

 

On 12/2/2020 at 3:37 PM, XRealX said:

I'm looking to spend as little money as possible while maintaining a good bang for the buck (aka I don't want to get a piece of shit).

This means nothing without an actual budget.

 

On 12/2/2020 at 3:37 PM, XRealX said:

Should I get a wifi 6 router or wifi 5 is good enough? At most 5 devices would use the network, but that's pretty rare. Does wifi 6 make any difference at these low speeds?

In best case scenarios, client connections to the internet won’t differ in speeds between WiFi 5 and WiFi 6. In order to take full advantage of WiFi 6, you’ll need clients with WiFi 6 network adapters. My experience with WiFi 6 (I have a few devices with Intel AX200 adapters and a Ubiquiti Alien) is that connections are more stable and the range is improved (my wife’s laptop was still connecting to our home’s WiFi even while 2 houses away, and those are houses with concrete walls!).

 

Not all routers are built the same. Cheap WiFi 6 routers might be rivalled by well-built WiFi 5 routers. However, assuming your home is all one level, there are no brick/concrete internal walls, there are no more than 10 devices connected simultaneously, and the wireless router is able to be placed in a central location, any good WiFi 5 router should be sufficient.

 

If the Tenda router is what is available to you in your region of the world and you have the ability to return it if you’re not satisfied, I’d give it a try.

[XRealX]

8 minutes ago, Falcon1986 said:

One level or multi-level?

One level.

 

Quote

In best case scenarios, client connections to the internet won’t differ in speeds between WiFi 5 and WiFi 6. In order to take full advantage of WiFi 6, you’ll need clients with WiFi 6 network adapters. My experience with WiFi 6 (I have a few devices with Intel AX200 adapters and a Ubiquiti Alien) is that connections are more stable and the range is improved (my wife’s laptop was still connecting to our home’s WiFi even while 2 houses away, and those are houses with concrete walls!).

Yeah, I don't have any wifi 6 capable devices and I don't think I'll be getting any that will have wifi 6 in the near future.

I have thick walls but they're made of... dirt. I think the terminology for this is adobe.

 

Quote

If the Tenda router is what is available to you in your region of the world and you have the ability to return it if you’re not satisfied, I’d give it a try.

I don't think I can return it unfortunately.

[Falcon1986]

4 minutes ago, XRealX said:

I don't think I can return it unfortunately.

OK. Which retailers are accessible to you? Anything online like Amazon, eBay, Newegg, Ubiquiti?

 

For small spaces and on a budget, my go-to is the Ubiquiti airCube AC (not the ISP version). It’s a simple no-frills wireless router that just works. Walls made of anything other than wood/drywall will be a challenge for any wireless router, so you should aim for central placement and then wiring in more access points in the future to cover any dead zones.

 

Tenda seems to be a popular budget brand in Europe and Asia. But so too is Xiaomi, which I’ve only heard (from other members of this forum) performs better for the same kind of budget. I’ve never used any of these brands, so I hope someone else who has can chime in to give advice.

[XRealX]

12 minutes ago, Falcon1986 said:

OK. Which retailers are accessible to you? Anything online like Amazon, eBay, Newegg, Ubiquiti?

 

For small spaces and on a budget, my go-to is the Ubiquiti airCube AC (not the ISP version). It’s a simple no-frills wireless router that just works. Walls made of anything other than wood/drywall will be a challenge for any wireless router, so you should aim for central placement and then wiring in more access points in the future to cover any dead zones.

 

Tenda seems to be a popular budget brand in Europe and Asia. But so too is Xiaomi, which I’ve only heard (from other members of this forum) performs better for the same kind of budget. I’ve never used any of these brands, so I hope someone else who has can chime in to give advice.

None of those retailers are available in my region. 

 

I'll take a look at xiaomi routers though. 

 

Are routers with external antennas better than the ones with built in ones? My guess is yes. 

[Falcon1986]

55 minutes ago, XRealX said:

Are routers with external antennas better than the ones with built in ones? My guess is yes. 

Most are. But real-life performance reviews are a much better indicator.