WiFi Router

[goodsound]

I'm having a 12mbps cable net connection. I want it to be connected with my new Panasonic TH-L42DT50D 3D led tv. I need a wireless router. Pl suggest one good wifi router. I'll be getting a Panasonic printer free. But not sure which model or whether that printer will be operated wirelessly or not. But keeping this as option in mind pl suggest some good option of HD wireless router within Rs-7000.

Thanks.

 

[just4kix]

There is no such thing as HD router - wireless or otherwise. Wireless routers are currently divided into two classes:

The old class is the Wireless B/G class that had a theoritical max speed of 54 mbps. It is marginally less powerful in terms of wireless strength and reach. The new class is the Wireless N class tjat have a theoritical max speed of 150 mbps. It boasts of a wider reach that the former. Both class of routers are way ahead in terms of your internet speed of 12 mbps and hence both will be able to provide 12 mbps speed.

I have both the routers at home and I found that Wireless N router does not have any significant advantage in terms of signal strength. Signal strength depends upon the thickness of walls and the location of the router. In India we have brick and mortor walls as opposed to wood and plaster as in case with the colder countries. Hence in India, wireless routers work less effectively. For best results, the router should be placed as close to the center of the home as possible.

But for best results you might as well stick to wireless N router. The Netgear N150 is available for around Rs. 1,450.

 

[goodsound]

Thanks for the reply.

By HD router I mean to say that the router should have the capability to transmit the HD signal properly. I don't have any knowledge on this. Many times I've seen that after buying something for a particular reason that bought out instrument was not working for my setup for some "exceptional" reason; otherwise it was fine with other systems. Same thing should not happen here that after buying I got to know that this particular model is not suitable for my TV model otherwise it is the Best in the market. I just wrote that to clear my requirements.

 

[ranjeetrain]

Even the most basic router with 150mbps wireless connectivity (N class) will suffice your need. Read just4kix's reply carefully. He has already explained. You need to keep your router close to the TV (better if in the same room). A more expensive router with speeds like 300/600 mbps wireless speed will not help as much as keeping the router close.

And the best solution is to use wired connection. Even a cheap router will provide much better connection over wired connection than an expensive router connected wirelessly but not placed properly.

 

[grunthos]

just4kix gave you a good intro to the basics of routers
However you are right in being concerned about their ability to deal with HD content. Assuming you have HD content in the form of 1080p/720p which you want to play on the TV. A WiFi b/g router gives real life speeds of about 1.5 Mbps, which is not enough for transmitting 1080p content smoothly. You should go for a WiFi N router which can easily achieve 10 Mbps (I get it regularly) and 1080p plays very smoothly. If you have untouched Blurays (40GB files), then that is not going to stream wirelessly - you have to go for wired LAN connection

Among N routers, basic routers are available for about 1.5k-2k from all brands. Then there are routers which work on dual frequencies - 2.5 and 5.0 Khz, which allows it to switch between the two frequencies to avoid congestion (if any - also results in a stronger WiFi signal). Those are around 3-4k. And then you have top of the line routers which come with USB storage capability. You can connect USB sticks or external hard drives and access content on them from any device on your WiFi network. These drives are around 6k. They have other frills like having a torrent client built in, so downloading can happen in the external drive directly without you having to keep your computer switched on.

Hope this helps you take a call on which router you want

Sent from my Dell Venue Pro using Board Express

 

[goodsound]

just4kix gave you a good intro to the basics of routers
However you are right in being concerned about their ability to deal with HD content. Assuming you have HD content in the form of 1080p/720p which you want to play on the TV. A WiFi b/g router gives real life speeds of about 1.5 Mbps, which is not enough for transmitting 1080p content smoothly. You should go for a WiFi N router which can easily achieve 10 Mbps (I get it regularly) and 1080p plays very smoothly. If you have untouched Blurays (40GB files), then that is not going to stream wirelessly - you have to go for wired LAN connection

Among N routers, basic routers are available for about 1.5k-2k from all brands. Then there are routers which work on dual frequencies - 2.5 and 5.0 Khz, which allows it to switch between the two frequencies to avoid congestion (if any - also results in a stronger WiFi signal). Those are around 3-4k. And then you have top of the line routers which come with USB storage capability. You can connect USB sticks or external hard drives and access content on them from any device on your WiFi network. These drives are around 6k. They have other frills like having a torrent client built in, so downloading can happen in the external drive directly without you having to keep your computer switched on.

Hope this helps you take a call on which router you want

Sent from my Dell Venue Pro using Board Express

Thanks for the reply. Is it possible for you to give some model nos with the expected prices. I'm getting same model in different prices on net.

 

[Amarendra]

Hi,

You can try the Asus RT N56U on Lamington Road. I got it about a month back for INR 7800. It uses dual band- 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz. The 5 ghz is useful for Ipads or newer devices. The 2.4 Ghz has much better reach than my old Belkin 150 N router.
Also this router acts as a NAS, connect your 1 TB HDD to it and access through other devices- ipad, ps3, media player, tv etc. It allows you to set priorities for the bandwidth use- streaming, videos, ftp etc. Last but not the least you can download overnight while the laptop is shut down if a external HDD is connected to it.
I find these features most useful at home.
Cheers

 

[abhish002]

If you are looking for basic internet connectivity and HD video streaming i would suggest D-Link DSL 2750U wireless N modem cum router. It costs about 2500 on Flipkart. I currently am using it and the range and quality is very good.

 

[goodsound]

If you are looking for basic internet connectivity and HD video streaming i would suggest D-Link DSL 2750U wireless N modem cum router. It costs about 2500 on Flipkart. I currently am using it and the range and quality is very good.

I don't know what you mean by basic. I'm totally new in this field. What I want is simply to connect my HD 3D TV to the net (which is password protected) and laptop for smooth HD and non-HD transmission without allowing others to use the network without permission and which is simple to use. Anyway thanks for your reply.

 

[omishra]

Guys! Whatever n router you use, streaming hd content or playing network shared file of hd content is mostly jittery and missing audio. I found it worked flawlessly for 720p and 1080i but not same for 1080p. I used 300n router but wifi dongles as each end were 150n. Also signal strength was excellent. In my case file was shared on windows desktop and player was xtreamer.
Now I have wired connection working nicely.

 

[tirthankar]

I have seen dropped frames and jittery sound using wireless network whenever the bitrate of the streamed media goes higher than 5-6 mbps. So if you are going to access high definition content stored in some network storage with wireless, then it wont give a seamless experience. Though I doubt if the TV itself will be capable of decodeing media files off the network.

On the other hand, if you just want to connect to the internet with the TV and use its smart features.. then any good wireless N router will serve the purpose. If you have and are using an internet connection, then you already have a modem.. you don't need a modem cum router.

Gigabit router will give you better speed over wired connections with gigabit devices (1000 Mbps), and wireless N routers will give you better speed over wireless connections with wireless N devices.
All routers should be fast enough to give you good speed over internet, Indian internet scene is not yet there to saturate router bandwidth.

I personally use Asus RT n16 and find it pretty stable and very tweakable. If tweaking is not important for you, also take a look at Netgear 3700. Both of them come under 7000

 

[just4kix]

Wireless is not the way to go for media streaming. Please read:

[post=393809]ST50 Owners' Thread - First impressions, Reviews, Tweaks, etc. - Post # 128[/post]
[post=397992]ST50 Owners' Thread - First impressions, Reviews, Tweaks, etc. - Post # 192[/post]

 

[kuduku]

For HD streaming WIFI is enough . Take a simultaneous dual band router if you have the budget which you have 7k . Use 5Ghz dedicated for streaming and 2.4 Ghz for other usage . The moment you use mix network than you are limited to the lowest like everyone selects b/g/n in their router . The moment any WIFI ' b' device connects then complete network is limited to 11 Mbit/s .
I have a HD player with a cheapo WIFI N 2.4 Ghz dongle and I am streaming from Belkin 600 HD router which has 2 usb ports . One usb ports has 2 TB with HD movies . I have streamed 22GB blueray iso and never faced any hiccups or stuttering .
Remember 5 Ghz has less range but can carry more data and 2.4 Ghz has longer range than 5 Ghz but will carry lesser data .
Even if you buy 2.4Ghz/5Ghz router select only N or A and dont select b/g/n or g/n or g/a . Each router has different interface and with people using dd-wrt its again changes so giving all examples .
For smooth HD streaming you require only 56-80 Mbit/s and N routers are 54 Mbit/s to 600 Mbit/s . Agreed the higher value is theoretical but with a good router you can easily do 80 Mbit/s .
Check out the WIKI IEEE 802.11 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . Than you also have different channels and channel width of 20 and 40 Mhz for selection so that minimum interference from your cordless landline telephone set or your neighbors WIFI .
Final conclusion use 5GHz and you will find in your complete society/colony no will be having 5Ghz . In mobiles S2 has dual band WIFI .
adding now that if you use WEP as security in WIFI than you will never get N speeds . Use WPA2 .

 

[kuduku]

Will add once first post is moderated

 

[haisaikat]

To clarify on doubts, the latest protocol is AC and not N. But AC based dongles are yet to come to easily available commercially in abundance.

Regarding Wifi N check this earlier post of mine for different problems that can come
http://www.hifivision.com/general-lounge/24983-mar-2012-wireless-n-router-bsnl-4.html#post356749

Wired is still best, but for wireless streaming I want to know what is the distance between router and TV and how many walls are there in between.

There are a few HD Wireless Video Streaming devices available but they are not routers.

 

[mowgli80]

If you are into downloading, you can go for a router with a USB port and supported by dd-wrt. It will turn your router into a full linux based system with lot of features including multiple torrent clients with which you can download into a usb attached drive. I am currently using ASUS N-16 and can vouch for it.

 

[kuduku]

Updated my post as its visible now

 

[haisaikat]

If you are into downloading, you can go for a router with a USB port and supported by dd-wrt. It will turn your router into a full linux based system with lot of features including multiple torrent clients with which you can download into a usb attached drive. I am currently using ASUS N-16 and can vouch for it.

But there is a catch, many ddwrt versions do not support ntfs over usb like mine model and moreover the usb device has to be manually mouted every time for many models via tge web admin page of the router. So as per me a combo of router with good throughput with usb nas devices like I mentioned earlier is much better.

 

[haisaikat]

For HD streaming WIFI is enough . Take a simultaneous dual band router if you have the budget which you have 7k . Use 5Ghz dedicated for streaming and 2.4 Ghz for other usage . The moment you use mix network than you are limited to the lowest like everyone selects b/g/n in their router . The moment any WIFI ' b' device connects then complete network is limited to 11 Mbit/s .
I have a HD player with a cheapo WIFI N 2.4 Ghz dongle and I am streaming from Belkin 600 HD router which has 2 usb ports . One usb ports has 2 TB with HD movies . I have streamed 22GB blueray iso and never faced any hiccups or stuttering .
Remember 5 Ghz has less range but can carry more data and 2.4 Ghz has longer range than 5 Ghz but will carry lesser data .
Even if you buy 2.4Ghz/5Ghz router select only N or A and dont select b/g/n or g/n or g/a . Each router has different interface and with people using dd-wrt its again changes so giving all examples .
For smooth HD streaming you require only 56-80 Mbit/s and N routers are 54 Mbit/s to 600 Mbit/s . Agreed the higher value is theoretical but with a good router you can easily do 80 Mbit/s .
Check out the WIKI IEEE 802.11 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . Than you also have different channels and channel width of 20 and 40 Mhz for selection so that minimum interference from your cordless landline telephone set or your neighbors WIFI .
Final conclusion use 5GHz and you will find in your complete society/colony no will be having 5Ghz . In mobiles S2 has dual band WIFI .
adding now that if you use WEP as security in WIFI than you will never get N speeds . Use WPA2 .

I have experimented for years on 5ghz band router with equivalent bridge but sorry to say that all tgese 5 ghz and 40 mhz jargon works over short distance and minimum or no obstruction like walls etc between source and target. That is why I asked op to specify how far his gears are.

 

[kuduku]

I have experimented for years on 5ghz band router with equivalent bridge but sorry to say that all tgese 5 ghz and 40 mhz jargon works over short distance and minimum or no obstruction like walls etc between source and target. That is why I asked op to specify how far his gears are.

Very true but generally people have these items in same cabinet or nearby or in same room so ..