Buy my UFB ISP's offered router, or another better/cheaper choice?

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Buy my UFB ISP's offered router, or another better/cheaper choice?

Baboon

386 posts

Ultimate Geek

#201617 26-Aug-2016 18:10

G'day.

I'm thinking I might upgrade to Full Flavour's gigabit plan from my current 100/120Mbps plan, given a recent price drop. And doing so would avoid me entering into a 12 month contract, as annoyingly required for a slightly lower priced 100/20Mbps plan. I'm fairly sure FF won't turn to custard over the next year, but I prefer to keep my options open nowadays, unless I'm avoiding a large initial fee like with getting fibre originally.

Anyway, as I have only an 802.11n router right now (supplied by FF - a Huawei HG253s V2 that has been reliable and stable as :-) ), and most of my devices I stream video to are on WiFi only, I really want a decent 802.11ac router first.

Now FF offers an $80 discount on this Linksys XAC1200 https://www.noelleeming.co.nz/shop/computers-tablets/accessories/networking-equipment/linksys-xac1200-au-ac1200-dual-band-with-smart-wi-fi-modem-router/prod132772.html , but before taking the plunge, I wonder if there are better choices for not much more, or preferably cheaper (since I am by nature cheap ;-) ), yet still balancing value and likely to last at least three years (I'm always happy when cheaper home networking tech that runs hot, manages that much).

Advice? I need to be able to do minor config like manually opening and routing a couple ports, and UPnP/NAT traversal must be solid. And as I say - WiFi able to handle gigabit networking is a must. I'm not worried about range much, as I'm in a small place. Dual band 2.4/5GHz is very handy to have.

TIA :-)

"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."

- Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

Baboon

386 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1618023 26-Aug-2016 18:20

Or come to think of it, there's no reason I can't turn off the HG253s V2's N WiFi and just connect a cheaper AC WiFi access point. So suggestions there are also welcome :-)

"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."

- Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

Dynamic

3866 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1618106 26-Aug-2016 21:26

Stable = very good and worth considering keeping. You have the option of putting a new AC WiFi device (possibly using PoE) in a more central location and connecting it up to your current router.

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

Referral links to services I use, really like, and may be rewarded if you sign up:
PocketSmith for budgeting and personal finance management. A great Kiwi company.

Baboon

386 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1618148 26-Aug-2016 23:33

Yeah, you're right. Home WiFi access points seem rare nowadays, so keeping the HG253s V2 and adding an 802.11ac access point wasn't my first thought. But no reason not to do so, I suppose, especially since the HG253s V2 manages to be stable and hassle-free.

Much more stable, I might add, than any of the ADSL routers I've owned in the past decade. In fact the last time I had an ADSL router (or any cheap home router for that matter) that stable, it was my Thomson Speedtouch 500 series. Sadly it lacked one feature I desired back then - auto-restart after a power outage *sigh* Other than that it was darn near perfect for me back in the early 2000's.

As I've a small place and rarely game or watch video in the bedroom (the furtherest room from my living room - through two walls either side of a very short hallway), I'm really not fussed about wireless range. Mainly I want reasonably speedy 802.11ac WiFi speeds all within about 5m of my current router. My desktop is connected via gigabit ethernet, but everything else is on WiFi, and right now the HG253s V2's 802.11n only manages to transmit about a third of my fibre connection plan's bandwidth - about 30MBps of 100Mbps. So if I'm downloading a large file, it's much slower on anything but my desktop. I'd like that to change, especially when I move to a gigabit fibre plan.

"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."

- Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

richms

28168 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1618152 27-Aug-2016 00:09

There are too many overpricec "AC 750" extenders out there, that are just 300 n + 433 AC in them (which is only 733, but anyway) - when you start to get to the really quick AC extenders/accesspoints, they are really pricy and getting close to the cost of an AC router anyway.

Richard rich.ms