Dual Band Wireless Router With High Signal Strength

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davegalbraith

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#100517 12-Apr-2012 20:01

Hi - I'm in the market for a dual band wireless router (up to approximately $350). My issue is that I let my neighbour use my internet account and he is about 30m away (router is in my concrete tile roof space and I have a brick house) . So ideally I want a router with a a strong signal over a lerge distance and ideally with an external antenna port or at the very least external antennas I may be able to swap out for better ones.

Most of the reviews I've seen of dual band routers aren't compliemntary about their signal strength, in many cases saying that older model routers actually perform better.

I would appreciate any advice from anyone who can point me in the direction of a dual band wireless router that might suit my requirements.

lucky015

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#608517 12-Apr-2012 21:58

Most of TP-Link's routers have removable antenna's I think however I'm not sure about Dual Band, They do a couple of Outdoor External antenna's to match too.

Keep in mind that for external antenna's a number of devices use each antenna for a different purpose so its not always simply a matter of replacing one.

richms

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#608723 13-Apr-2012 12:16

There are funny FCC things about detachable antennas for 5GHz gear. I have only seen dual band with internal antennas or permanantly attached useless little stubby plastic things that I am guessing just have a 1/4 wave stripped piece of coax in it.

Richard rich.ms

lyonrouge

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#609326 14-Apr-2012 16:35

For what it's worth, I'm trying to revert from dual band back to a 2.4GHz device as my current device (Netgear) has very poor wireless performance. I have 5GHz turned off as I have no 5GHz end points, but the performance is still very poor.

th3r3turn

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#609332 14-Apr-2012 16:44

i heard that the "Apple Airport Extreme Base Station" is a good product, looking at getting one with the next 2 weeks.

sbiddle

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#609335 14-Apr-2012 16:50

5GHz peformance will be worse than 2.4GHz if there is anything blocking the signal - and in this case there is.

You also need to remember that high power (which is what I assume you mean by high signal strength) isn't necessarily the solution to the problem. There are lots of other issues that will affect performance including the type of wireless device at the the other end and the gain it has, and the channel you're on. As pointed out by others you can't easily fit external antennas to most modern devices as they are MIMO.

If I was building a solution to your problem I'd have a standard router in your home and an externally mounted AP such as a UBNT Nanostation facing his house.

abeshi1523

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#613446 23-Apr-2012 07:49

Try ASUS RT-N66U, most recommended dual band router with great performance.

I got mine NZ$320 from eBay and I love it.

Just4achuckle

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#613504 23-Apr-2012 09:11

I think sbiddle already covered it... but just remember there are 2 parts in any wireless conversation.

You can have all the power in the world and it won't help one single bit if your neighbour doesn't have the power to get back to you. So if he/she is sitting there with an old (3yrs+) laptop that only can only connect with 802.11G or worse because of the distance and obstacles gets downgraded to B, your whole wireless network will slow to a crawl and you'll be [unfairly] cursing your shiny new ASUS Router.

If it was me I'd ring around a few mates, get them to dig out any "old" wireless routers they might have - you'll only need 2... throw a little FREE custom firmware in there... DD-WRT then set them up as 2 wireless bridges. It's always fun hacking stuff up and you'll definitely learn something along the way. If nothing else, its damn good fun voiding warrenties.

Failing that you can always try a piece of string and 2 paper cups ]-----------------------[

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davegalbraith

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#613609 23-Apr-2012 12:27

Thanks to everyone for their helpful suggestions. After doing some research and reading customer reviews I came to the conclusion that dual band routers seemed to have limited range in either band so ended up buying a non-dual band D-Link 655 as it seemed to have a good range (before I read the comment about the ASUS which looks like it may have been a better option). As it turned out is was pretty weak and only just reached the rear bedroom of my vaerage 3 bedroom house.

Luckily a friend of mine who works in a networking outfit had a couple of spare commercial strength wireless units so one of them I stuck in the roofspace, connected via a cable to my D-Link. Then I bridged it to the other one which my neighbour then plugged in at home.

He can now connect at 50-60 MB which is more than suitable for his internet browsing needs (connecting straight to my D-Link router only gave 5-20 MB)

wasabi2k

2098 posts

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#613619 23-Apr-2012 12:40

I wouldn't bother with the standard soho stuff.

Have read a lot of really good stuff about ubiquiti wireless gear. I have a couple of UniFi APs and theya re great.

They do a massive range, indoor/outdoor antennas etc.

Bought mine from gowireless.co.nz

Just4achuckle

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#613820 23-Apr-2012 17:26

Just remember if you a pumping out that much signal it's more of an attack surface.
Might sound a bit over the top but you'd be amazed how far those signals can travel
It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway... \

1. WPA2 encryption,
2. A strong password (!=Str0ng Pa$$w0rd) that won't be found in any dictionary
3. Disable WPS
4. Don't forget to change the name of the your wireless network to something different other than DLINK

happy networking!