[plug] Wireless router recommendations

[Bill Kenworthy]

Seeing this the first thing that came to mind is the environment - have
you checked to there are no 802.11B clients/AP's nearby?  Even a good
WiFi setup can be brought to its knees by this.

BillK


On 11/16/16 15:03, Brad Campbell wrote:
> On 16/11/16 14:43, Thomas Cuthbert wrote:
>> I think i've had one major crash which wiped my configuration and caused
>> it to boot back into the linksys image (this was a while ago and I've
>> since done a few upgrades). I sometimes (very rare) have to reboot the
>> router as I lose wifi but that could just because of my macbook pro. My
>> suggestion would be to archive an encrypted copy of your configuration
>> to your personal FTP storage on your ISP or remote disk.
>>
>
> Thanks, we have a pretty comprehensive multi-site backup system in
> place, and all OpenWRT routers get backed up any time a config change
> is made.
>
>> I barely scratch the sides in terms of mem/cpu utilisation but I'm not
>> doing heavy SSL VPN. I personally have it connected to Telstra Velocity
>> which gets handed to me via UTP/Cat5 PPPoE as well as a Fixed Wireless
>> Service which is similiar to NBN ie provisioned via DHCP. If you require
>> ADSL you will need to get a modem and attach it to one of the ethernet
>> ports I think.
>
> The FTTP terminates in an NTU in the garage. From there its Ethernet
> into the router with a PPPoE transport. So that's already sorted. It's
> all working with the existing router, there are just serious
> throughput issues that frankly I'm pretty sure are actually congestion
> in TPGs network (ie speed test @ 21Mb/s at 9am and 8Mb/s at 5PM).
>
> Dad has been pestering me to upgrade the router as that is the easiest
> thing to blame. To be fair, its wireless performance isn't that great,
> and speed tests routinely test out 10-25% faster on copper than over
> Wifi, so this was low hanging fruit. Once this is done I can more
> easily point the finger at the upstream provider knowing that the
> local network is a bit better provisioned.
>
> Honestly, his old ADSL was syncing at about 22Mb/s. That was bridged
> into the router, so the absolute config hasn't changed
> (ethernet/pppoe). It's just the upstream has moved from an ADSL to a
> FTTP NTU. It worked fine for him on the old ADSL, and given the plan
> he's on is capped at 25Mb/s downstream anyway I don't see how it can
> be much different. Browsing whirlpool (and I now see why they call it
> that as it diverts hours from your life down the plughole) would
> indicate that TPG has a bit of a rep for congestion, particularly on
> international links, so we'll see.
>
> I have a couple of servers in the UK, so I'll try some iperf tests
> to/from those vs a VPS somewhere in Sydney. That'll probably be more
> illustrative than the old web-based speed tests.
>
> I could use faster wireless at home too. I'm using an old Netgear
> WNDR3700 with OpenWRT as a WAP. If the Linksys works out ok for him
> and the wireless seems solid, I'll look at upgrading too. The built-in
> antenna on the WNDR3700 are not great at 2.4GHz and pretty woeful at 5.
>
> Thanks for the advice all.
>
> Regards,
> Brad
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