Best Router to buy for home set up?

Bubba

Hi all

im considering investing in a new router for the house. Currently have the bog standard one issued by Virgin approx 2 years old now (tall black one).

im looking for a middle of the range one, doesn’t need to be super fancy but looking for increased range and ideally speed if possible.

any ideas of any suggestions at a reasonable price?

Ubbquittious

asus

Bubba

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119610379#Comment_119610379

Thanks @Ubbquittious - any particular model or are you just recommending Asus routers in general?

heavydawson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119612151#Comment_119612151

I use 3 Asus (1x GT-AX6000, 2 x RT-AX86U). I only have the GT-AX6000 for dual 2.5GB ports. The AX86U is a great model. Dong knows is a good resource:

https://dongknows.com/best-wi-fi-6-routers/

DecTenToo

Agree. I set my Virgin router into modem only mode, have the RT-AC-5300 and RT-AC86U for the back of the house in mesh mode where the coverage is bad. You can also look at the Merlin firmware for extra functionality, should you need it.

banie01

I use Asus and have done for years.

Currently have 2 running a Mesh setup with 2nd one running in an outbuilding. My "main" is an RT-AX88U and it's rock solid and using Asus Merlin FW gives plenty of tweaking options.

dub45

Don’t forget that you will need an ipv4 address to be able to put the VM router into modem mode.

Bubba

Thanks Legends. Great info and lots to research

Bubba

Hey folks, a follow up question on this. What’s the difference between mesh mode on a router and just a normal access point you can buy?

appreciate the advice 🙂

theteal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119620096#Comment_119620096

Unless it's different to here in the UK, it auto assigns when put to modem mode. I don't even think I had to configure the outside interface of my ax88

theteal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616303#Comment_119616303

Sorry to divert OP but just on Merlin, I've been tempted in the past but kinda forgotten since. What am I missing?

cnocbui

Well everyone tends to like what they have got so I'll give a shout out to Fritzbox. Better than anything else I have had, particularly the OS UI.

banie01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119633473#Comment_119633473

There are lots of benefits, for me the main ones are better VPN support & subnetting, assigning specific DNS to individual clients.

More info here:

https://dongknows.com/asus-routers-and-merlin-firmware/

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119633466#Comment_119633466

In the UK I don't think you guys have IPv6 at all. Over here, residential customers are put on IPv6 by default with IPv4 routed via a DS-Lite (carrier grade NAT) tunnel. The modem mode option isn't available when IPv6 is enabled. You have to call support to get it disabled, after which you're assigned a public IPv4 address as normal.

heavydawson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119633424#Comment_119633424

If you have multiple access points with the same network name and password configured, then you're half-way to a mesh. That assumes each of those access points is connected back to a router via network cable.

"Proper" meshes are largely characterized by the fact that only a single node is connected via network cable to the modem/router provided by the ISP.

The mesh nodes communicate with one another via Wifi (For that reason they'll usually have 2x2.4Ghz or 2x5Ghz support)

Asus offers a software-based solution called AIMesh for their devices. This allows for not only Wifi-based backhaul, but also Ethernet-based backhaul.

Most meshes will limit the configuration options available on the non-master nodes to ensure the network is consistent.

The truth is the Mesh ecosystem is very complicated!