Suggest a suitable wifi router

[Rj123]

If they are going to refund the security deposit, then I'm going forward to purchasing the new wireless modem. But it's a little disappointing that it cannot be used with cable internet.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't want to cram my table with cables, so I better prefer modem+router in one. So can you give me any suggestion for such a modem, the cheapest, the better because I may not use this connection for more than another 8 months

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I need one more suggestion. Can anyone tell whether Actiontec modems are good?

I have the following choices:
Actiontec ADSL 2+ wireless WIFI Modem Router for Rs. 1500
TP-Link TD-W8101G Adsl2+ Wireless modem/router for Rs.1587
TP-LINK TD-W8151N Adsl2+ Wireless modem/router for Rs.1750

I have the use with modem for about 8 months and may be some more time after that.
I think I really don't need N type modem if it doesn't work with cable internet later on. Would there be any advantage if I prefer Ntype modem over Gtype for BSNL broadband connection?

Please help me. I really don't know much about these things - just going through the net finding out everything the hardway.

 

[deepakdeshp]

The requirement is to have a wireless coverage area of 50x 50 Mtrs in buildings. I want to set up a lan hence the Wireless router should be able to cover a wide area. So what is your recommendation , which router should I buy? It should be a simple wireless router without any ADSL as there will not be any internet connection. How many routers may be required and how should they be placed?

 

[mgcarley]

1. How many rooms/apartments are you planning to connect?2. How many users in total?3. What is your budget?4. Is this 50 meters indoor or outdoor (as in, within 1 apartment or having multiple apartments talking to each other)?50 meters *should* be possible with 1 access point, but it depends on the construction of the building as to whether the signal will permeate the walls nicely or not - you could spend anything from Rs1500 to Rs45k depending on indoor/outdoor, extra antennas and such.

 

[deepakdeshp]

There will be around 30 class rooms and I am expecting 20 simultaneous users maximum.I want to go in for a low end router without ADSL as there will not be any internet connectivity.It will be a school , hence multiple class rooms to be connected.So which make and model of router, How many access points are advised ? Somebody suggested one router per class room , I think it will be an overkill.

 

[mgcarley]

30 classrooms in 50x50 meters? How small are these classrooms?How many floors? What is the building made out of? How thick are the internal walls?How thick are the floors?New building or old building?Are there metal cages on the windows? Do you need access outdoors as well?Presumably you wish to connect all of the access points together, so you will need to be running cables to a central location/switch anyway unless you want to use wireless repeating (the savings in money probably are not worth it).(If you could draw a quick floorplan and upload that to somewhere like imgur.com that might also be useful)

 

[deepakdeshp]

This is a generlization scenario because it is not one school in which the wireless will be implemented but in different schools. Are there any recommendations anywhere? If I know the recommendations I will be able to plan it for myself. The recommendations can consider parameters like no of buildings, rooms, wall thickness , metal cages etc.I was planning to house the wireless router in the computer box itself in order to make it compact, but will it reduce the coverage range? Will it be a substantial reduction of range?

 

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[chaibiskutbhai]

Since the area is quite big, I would recommend using not less than 2 routers. Most routers allow a maximum of 16 wireless users, although you can technically have upto 256 wired+wifi users in all.

Here is a rough diagram to show how you can place the routers:

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________R1




________R2

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I would suggest a Belkin N150 Enhanced router, which is easy to use, reliable and secure, at the same time, cost effective being around Rs 1800 only.

 

[mgcarley]

This is a generlization scenario because it is not one school in which the wireless will be implemented but in different schools. Are there any recommendations anywhere? If I know the recommendations I will be able to plan it for myself. The recommendations can consider parameters like no of buildings, rooms, wall thickness , metal cages etc.

I was planning to house the wireless router in the computer box itself in order to make it compact, but will it reduce the coverage range? Will it be a substantial reduction of range?

Whatever you do, do NOT put the wifi router inside anything made of metal.

As for recommendations, there aren't really any. Most professionals use spectrum analyzers, and there are some (relatively) cheap devices you can get for the purpose of figuring this stuff out. The reason for this is that there are no two places that are the same. If you want to get one of these, a popular dongle is made by Wi-Spy, comes complete with software and all.

While you *could* get away with a couple of consumer-grade routers, you *might* be better off with a single carrier grade router and big antenna. Output, antenna size/direction/type would usually depend on the layout of the place and all the variables I've been asking about would change the optimal placement of the device(s), the wiring etc - hence all the questions.

A typical consumer grade router has a supposed radius of about 70m indoors, but the results will vary (widely) based on the router make & model, antenna, output, frequency, and all the variables I've asked about. Expect MUCH less from most consumer-grade routers, especially in most Indian buildings (thick walls, lots of unshielded wiring etc). Carrier grade ones are a bit nicer and some even have the ability to control range (brands such as Ubiquiti, Engenius, Ligowave, Mikrotik etc). A Ubiquiti 2.4GHz device with a separate 360 degree antenna will set you back around Rs25-30k but is well worth it - you'd probably need only 1 (the 360 degree antenna is high gain, so, performance-wise it should do exactly what you need to, and the configuration software is very nice).

If you choose the consumer-grade option and don't want to buy a spectrum analyzer or any heat-mapping tools, what you could do is buy say 4 devices and space them relatively equally and wander around the premises with a wifi-enabled phone, tablet or laptop and just check. Even something as simple as pinging the access point can give an indication of what the signal is doing - for a stable connection you should be able to see it in 1-2ms - if it spikes above that, there's some interference from something and you may experience speed issues or packet drops - this can vary also from 1 meter of floor space to the next.

Whichever option you do choose will probably work, but the question is how well and how reliably.

I'm personally not much of a fan of Belkin or D-Link - I tend towards Netgear or Linksys and most of these tend to sit in the Rs2-5k range, and without knowing anything else about the premises you'll probably need 2 or 3 devices. Best practice in a scenario like this: keep the SSID and the security passphrases the same. This will allow client devices to roam from one room to another without having to reconfigure wifi settings and all and the device in question will automatically reconnect itself if it goes out of range of one and in to another.

 

[deepakdeshp]

To mgcarley, Thank you very much . My budget is not much really and the schools expect an economic solution hence whatever costs me 25-30k will not work. Your idea to test the strength with the laptop or tablet is very useful and effective. It will come in handy for me.. Keeping SSID and paraphrase are again good suggestions. I appreciate the detailed reasoning and the efforts.

 

[deepakdeshp]

I will have 2 NIC cards and 2 subnets with 2 wi-fi routers. The routers can be kept in the middle of the coverage area , separated by some distance . The server with 2 NICs will connect to the 2 routers by lan cable as it will give good performance. The wireless clients are going to connect to the server , and not to internet.Let me know your opinion on this plan