I’m not sure “range” is a single parameter. How much throughput do you need? Is this in free air, or through walls and furniture, or bouncing around a cluttered office environment? Horizontal, or up and down floors? Is there a lot of interference from other WiFi systems?
The best distance through walls and furniture, with not much interference, may actually come from 2.4 GHz in a 20 MHz channel, maybe one of those N450 routers with the 3 long external antennas. You won’t get the short range throughput that you would get from 5 GHz in an 80 MHz channel. That’s why usually tell customers to only tell their portable devices about the 2.4 GHz SSID, and reserve 5 GHz for video devices in the same room with the router. But that’s bad advice if you can see 20 other SSIDs from your neighbors. Theoretically the AC routers with all the external antennas like a cockroach on its back should be the best of both worlds. But there’s a lot of hype in the router business. From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jason McKemie Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2016 3:28 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [AFMUG] Residential Router I've been trying to pin down the router with the best range for around $150, but there are quite a few different opinions online. The TP Link Archer C7 is reviewed pretty well and is <$100. Other than that I'm thinking about a Netgear R6400 or R7000. Any opinions on or experiences with these routers? -Jason
