Wireless routers...does it matter which one?

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silentsammy

Limp Gawd
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I'm don't know too much about networking computers, though I did set up the current network at our office (2 computers). I will soon be upgrading to a 4 or 5 computer network and was thnking I'd go with wireless. Now when I'm looking at wireless routers on Newegg, I can see there are a ton of different ones, but does it really matter which one I get?

Can anyone give me some tips as to which would be a good wireless router to go with? Essentially this is for a small office, no gaming going on there, but I do want something that is stable and secure. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance! :)
 
general suggestion with this is to stick with the same brand of wifi cards as the wifi access point itself (ie: all netgear, all linksys, etc.).

my personal vote is toward netgear. we're running the WGT624, which has incredible range and signal strength (mostly b/c it has a laptop wireless card in it). it's going through concrete, brick, and two floors, and my laptop is still getting about 80% and up signal strength (fyi, the laptop is using it's internal intel wifi card). the router's admin interface is very intuitive with common explanations of features of each admin screen in a side panel next to the settings.

hth!
 
For business usage, dedicated "business-class" access points and routers are generally preferred for various reasons, including greater feature set, flexibility, security, performance and reliability.

One compromise all-in-one solution would be the D-Link DGL-4300. It's a good, stable and fast router, decent basic GbE switch, and a so-so wireless access point. Ignore the gaming marketing. There are some variations on this, including some with no wireless, and some with no gigabit and different wireless, and even one that is marketed as an "Office Router" with enhanced wireless and a print server.
 
I'd think that as long as they all stick to the published standards, most combinations of routers and wireless cards should work together just fine. Some of the routers I've noticed have other features that obviously won't work the way they intended when you mix and match.
That being said, I've got a D-link wireless router and just ordered a couple linksys wireless nics for the home pcs. we'll see how well they work out.
 
Thanks for the input guys.

Madwand said:
One compromise all-in-one solution would be the D-Link DGL-4300. It's a good, stable and fast router, decent basic GbE switch, and a so-so wireless access point. Ignore the gaming marketing.
Click to expand...

The D-Link 4300 was one of the ones I was looking at
( $120 at the Egg )

One other one that I was leaning towards is this ZyXEL Router that gets very good Egg reviews

I hadn't really checked out the Netgears yet but I'll take a look at that WGT624 that was mentioned.

Madwand, when you mention a 'business class access point' what exactly does that mean? Is it something like one of these Cisco routers ?

Thanks for the help! :D
 
An access point is a dedicated wireless transmitter / receiver which often looks similar to a wireless router, but doesn't have WAN routing capability, and typically a broader feature set in the wireless part, incorporating things like support for multiple SSIDs, WDS bridge / repeater, PoE, etc., etc., and also typically better wireless implementations, performance and stability.

Here's one page of access points; there's a lot of variety out there. http://www.directdial.com/us/shop/go/wireless-access-point.asp?menu=114,135,138,

Note also that you can use any wireless router either as a wired router (turn off the wireless) or as a wireless access point (turn off the DHCP / routing), so you have options to mix & match and optimize each side for its role.

The ZyXEL is very similar to the D-Link DGL-4300 and even more so the D-Link DI-634M. These have the same or similar Ubicom StreamEngine and the MIMO units the Atheros MIMO chipset, with some doing the trade-off of GbE for MIMO. There are also draft 802.11n variants...

The wireless spectrum is a bit of a mess at present though, and I'd suggest that you look into it a bit more broadly before jumping into a particular device. Compatibility matters, so if you're getting a propietary MIMO AP, you need compatible proprietary wireless adapters/bridges/etc., all around to take advantage of it, so you're heavily committing to that technology. 802.11n is the next level, and it's not ready yet. In either case, you take a chance with longevity. Asus provides a guarantee with adaptability / compatibility down the road; few if any others do the same. http://event.asus.com/2006/wireless/pren/

Hold on for the turn...

One thing I find funny is that most of these 802.11n products advertise faster than fast ethernet speeds, but few back that up with a faster than fast ethernet wired connection in the back. What's the point of having wireless with impressive-looking bandwidth numbers if the wire in the back holds you back? Netgear is among the few that answer this, and even has an AP with a GbE port.

I originally bought my DGL-4300 is for its GbE ports. Gigabit is cheap, easily justifiable for large internal transfers, and faster, more stable, and secure than any wireless, draft or otherwise. In setting up a network, I'd try to avoid wireless wherever possible, and for any remaining need for wireless, consider deploying a wireless bridge instead of adapters (which I do at home btw), and pick the wireless technology according to remaining performance needs, compatibility, etc., etc., looking a bit into the future.
 
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