Wireless Router recommendation (home)?

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Lazy Daze

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Finally getting around to buying a wireless router for use at home (I have a cable modem). In doing some research, it looks as though the Linksys WRT160N offers good range and speed - I'm more interested in the range as I don't do any online gaming stuff.

I then thought twice about it as I have some 2.4ghz cordless phones and thought there might be interference. But, it looks as though the 160 is a dual band (5ghz), as well.

Those of you with more experience than me (which will be many, many of you), what are your thoughts? I'd like to keep my expenditure under $100. Any recommendations?

For a few bucks more, there's the 320N but I really don't understand what that gets me - over the 160N. At the Radio Shack store, the 320N was advertised as a "dual band" and the guy there told me I needed that one because of the cordless phones. But I saw on Linkys' site that the 160N has the same thing. :huh:

Although, when I asked him about it, he basically just read off the box. Good thing he did that as I probably wouldn't have been able to do that myself...:smt101
 
Dennis,

A cleaner solution might be to add a new cable modem with wireless capability. Even if your cable modem is only a couple years old, a new one will come with much better firewall features plus the support of your cable company to configure.

Henry
 
For what it is worth, I would stay away from Linksys. I had nothing but problems with mine, mind you it was a 'g' router. I went through 3 in a year and a half under warranty. They continuously dropped signals and I would have to reset router to stay connected. I had a Netgear 'b' router prior to that this is still running great at my parents house. I gave it to them because I wanted the 'g' with extended range. The Netgear never gave me issues, however the Linksys was garbage. Their customer service was a pain to deal with, but did replace it 3 times. I have a friend that installs and trouble shoots them for a living (among other PC work) and he told me that was the norm for Linksys. I am sure some have had good luck with them, but he suggested I go back to Netgear. I have had my New one for almost a year without any issues. I have this one:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/NETGEAR...itch/8669915.p?id=1197074537600&skuId=8669915

It sits in our office on the second floor of a standard two story house and I can go to the basement without losing signal. At any given time it has our home desktop (hardwired to it), my laptop, my wife's laptop, digital media player, the PS3 and Wii running on it without any issues. the Wii is in the basement as well and it picks up the signal just fine. I am sure some have had issues with Netgear as well, but my experience has been very good.

Out of the box it was very simple to setup, almost plug in and go.
 
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Airport with a repeater covers our house which is about 100' long and has some internal brick walls. Also reaches the dock which is more than 100' away. It's a Mac which may or may not work with a PC. I like it well enough to do it again.
 
my experience of both linksys and netgear is that both are highly reliable and the "n" models provide excellent coverage. walls and ceilings are no problem. steel reinforced walls can cause issues as can access the other side of a pool, but aside from that both are excellent brands. i juts bough and installed the european version of a similar linksys model to the one you are considering (except it has the adsl modem built in) and its a great buy. of course you have to make sure that your computers support "n" - only very recent laptops do. but you can buy a usb adapter pretty cheaply. best of luck.
 
I guess you have to be very specific when you make a post or someone will call you on it.:grin:
 
sbw1 said:
Airport with a repeater covers our house which is about 100' long and has some internal brick walls. Also reaches the dock which is more than 100' away. It's a Mac which may or may not work with a PC. I like it well enough to do it again.
Click to expand...

I have the Time Capsule from Mac that has Airport Utility which acts as a wireless router for your home. The nice thing about this is it also has a 500gb hard drive that acts as an external backup- wirelessly. You program your computer to back up daily, weekly, or whenever- automatically. If you have a lot of "stuff" you can splurge for the 1 terabyte version.

I pulled my manual and it says it is compatible for Windows XP. I think I paid about 299.00 at Apple.
 
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Chris R said:
.I pulled my manual and it says it is compatible for Windows XP. I think I paid about 299.00 at Apple.[/QUOTE


Yes it is. Stupid me. I'm running XP right now. Usually I'm on the Mac.
Click to expand...
 
I've got a Linsky N. I think its ok for me. It runs 24/7. Range is decent. It does have to be reset from time to time, mostly on very hot days. I believe they like a cool environment. Like others have said, I would get the latest and greatest. Something that can handle the speed of your cable and with firewall protection. Your neighbors if there close might be able to pick up on you. My neighbors are some distance from men so I don't worry much about that. Although those pesky racoons, I wouldn't put it past them!

Gee... I remember the day when I hardwired my house for internet! how dumb was that:smt101 cheers...Ron
 
I've used Netgear WGR614 since my first wireless network in the house. Have one at the office now also. No probs. I did have to reset the channel my cordless phones in the house - they are 2.4ghz and they did cause problems when on the default channel. Switching to ch 11 did the trick.
 
Thanks, everyone, for all your suggestions. I do have a newer Mac, plus an older Powerbook G4. The cable company is currently supplying my modem.

I followed Henry's suggestion and it looks like my cable company may offer a wireless set-up for just $2 more per month (currently paying $3/mo for the modem rental). I'll call them tomorrow and find out for sure.

If that doesn't pan out, I'll take a look at the suggestions you guys gave for specific brands/models.

Thanks again!
 
Dennis,

I have experience with both Netgear and Linksys. Used each for couple of years. Netgear worked just ok, but the thing that was pissing me off is that it would loose services and had to be rebooted periodically. Linksys (I have WRT300N), is trouble free and had noticebly longer range. I have linksys (don't recall exact model) on my boat as well for couple of years. I even purchased repeaters for netgear router and was unable to get it to work, although it was streight forward. In the end, I would buy linksys from ebay to save few bucks instead of going with netgear.
 
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So far my little Netgear has been powered on and running 24/7 for the past 6 years with no problems, only a re-boot now and again...

Also have 1TB of network attached storage (NAS) which is awesome!!!...
 
If you are running a MAC, you might consider something specific to Apple.

I would recommend a dual band router. I believe they have one called Airport. You can even get the router that has a Terabyte of storage so that it will automatically (and wirelessly) back up your system.

The dual band is important because the without it, the wireless router wil go to the lowest common denominator for speed. If you have a laptop that has 'N' capabilities and another on the network with 'G', the single band router will go with the 'G' which is slower than the 'N'.
 
Well, to get a wireless set-up through my cable supplier it'll be another $5/mo. Not bad, I guess, but I think at that point I'd rather just buy one.

Now, is best to get an all-in-one modem/wireless router or keep paying the $3/mo fee for the modem and add a wireless router. I'm leaning towards just adding the router, so I'll look over all of the suggestions above.
 
Just revamped my system 2 weeks ago and my very experienced programmer used a Netgear RangeMax
Wireless-N Gigabit Router (WNR3500). It works great.
 
Turns out one of my neighbors has the Linksys 160. When I talked to him about it, he started talking like Living.The.Dream.330 was, up above. I figured that's good enough for me! If I have a problem, he's nearby.

Anyways, hooked it up and both computers worked right away. I couldn't get my iPhone to work, though. I tried that "instant chat" thing with someone from Linksys and he walked me through the whole process. I was impressed with the customer service.

Thanks everyone for all the help and suggestions!
 
Dennis...Linksys Wireless N (300N) for the last 2 years. The customer service is as good as it gets (24/7). They have even replaced a bad unit out of warranty "no charge" "no questions asked" I am high on them based on my experience.

Don't laugh too hard...but I also have some of my stuff "hard wired" with Cat 5 and these duplex outlet transmitter/repeater gizmos made by Netgear!!! They work very well.

I am in the process of re-thinking my whole setup. Right now believe it or not...I am running two of my laptops tethered to Verizon Blackberry Storms on the 3G and I am amazed how quick they are.:thumbsup:
 
I've had a couple, the MAC airport router works best with my cable internet. The others needed to be configured to the ip adress.... blah blah blah crap that I don't understand. The apple router I just plugged in and it works. Then I plugged my printer into the router and now I can print from anywhere in the house.
 
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