Good Router with range

albob

Hi,
I live in a 2 storey house with concrete upper floors. Thus I would like to buy a router whose range would be capable of penetrating this. At its furtherest the router would have to get through 2 concrete wall and the concrete slab floor, plus a distance of ~20m. I was looking at the Belkin Wireless Pre-N router which seems to have super range but when I read comments like "At 1,500 feet, the Pre-N was still running at a respectable 10 Mbps" I wonder am I going over board. I dont want the whole town sitting on my router!
I will be connecting via a laptop with a intel 3945 a/b/g mini-card. Thus as I only have g support, will I even see the extra range?
(Also, I hope to be connecting it to BT broadband so if anyone knows of any issues with that, let me know!)
Thanks

Boggles

Unfortunately there is only one way of knowing for sure and that is to test it, maybe borrow a mates. If you buy online you have a 7 day no quibble cash back return.

As for the whole town sitting on it, use security and do not broadcast your ssid.

311

I've got a belkin pre-N router (mimo) and I'm sure it would do the job you need.

http://www.belkin.com/uk/support/product/?lid=enu&pid=F5D8230uk4

Basically ,I can be sitting in my car about 10 meters from the house and I still get connected no problem.
They're pretty robust ,so I'd say ebay would be a good option.

Anything I had connected to it no problem ,wifi-pci car ,wifi-dongle ,intel laptop card etc etc.
Very easy to set up passwords on it .

albob

Should I splash out the extra 40e for the Intel Next-gen Wireless-N minicard to ensure I can deal with the range issue? At the moment the laptop (being put together by dell at this very moment so I can change if required) has the a/b/g card. Crowds like Belkin have G+ and G+MIMO but i assume I would need there own cards to recieve these?

311

Sorry it took me a while to get back ,I've got a siemens laptop with an intel b/g card and I never had any trouble with the belkin router.

To be honest ,the router had so much power ,I don't think it would have any trouble connecting anything.Mimo is the key I think.
Probably weaker routers won't communicate so well because all the power is used up already.

The router I had is oldish technology now ,so I'm not sure if the Full N routers would be as universal at connecting stuff.

albob

Does that mean that the intel a/b/g card could make use of belkins G+ MIMO ability i.e that I would not have to buy a Belkin card?
Thanks for your replies by the way.

311

I have one of them cards your talking about and I never had to use it.
I got the pcmcia card ,pci - pcmcia adapter free with the router.

I have to say though ,whenever I plug in the mimo pcmcia card into my laptop ,I can pickup stuff that the laptop cant:) i.e. neighbours down the road.

If your worried about the router not working ,why don't you buy one in harvey normans or the likes and just bring it back if your not happy.
I bought my router in harvey normans ,I think i paid 140 for the router with a pcmcia card and pci-adapter.

cregser

Don't get Linksys! I made that mistake. They went downhill after Cisco bought them out. Belkin do seem to be making a good name for themsleves lately - they used to be cheap and cheerful, but i see more and more comments about good quality.

As for range - remember that you can have the best wireless router in the world, but your range will be limited to what your laptop can reach. An external PCMCIA card with it's on little antenna will improve your laptop's range. But don't expect every gizmo you have to get the same range (e.g. a nintendo wii).

When installing your router, be careful where you place it. Ideally it would be placed centrally in your house in an open area. But that space is usually reserved for support beams and staircases (putting under the stairs would be bad, out in the hall might be better depending on shape of building). So it's all about trial and error and learning.

Also, maybe worth remembering: wireless signals propagate in a kind of doughnut shape from the centre of an antenna (i.e. not spherical or upwards in the direction of the pole).

Lastly, with propreitry solutions you usually get vendor lockin. AFAIK G+ MIMO would mean you'd have to buy a Belkin card to go with it. But I doubt it would be of much benefit if MIMO means multiple-in multiple-out, unless you're hosting conferences!

311

You don't need a mimo card to benefit from the extra power ,but the cards are themselves stronger ,so you get even more distance.

Example being ,I no longer use the mimo router ,I am using the eircom netopia .

But I've got a mimo card stuck in a pc and it's a great card for distance.