8 ms·

I am the owner of an ASUS RT-N16. I purchased it when my Linksys WRT-54G died after 4 years. It really is a fantastic wifi router for the reasons you list. Howe

I am the owner of an ASUS RT-N16. I purchased it when my Linksys WRT-54G died after 4 years. It really is a fantastic wifi router for the reasons you list. However, if you live in an apartment complex you might find the 2.4GHz spectrum very crowded. Especially if there are others with 2.4GHz 802.11n, which uses more channels than 802.11b/g. This might make it worthwhile to purchase a 5 Ghz 802.11n router.

jseliger 14y ago
Definitely. There appear to be more than 30 named networks within range of my iMac. That's one reason I've wired my iMac and my fiancee's iMac with cat6; as I wrote in another comment day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5192837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5192837 : It's also amazing how prevalent Ethernet still is, even when wireless is a competitor. The other day I left this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052448 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052448 on HN, because in some circumstances running a cheap ethernet cable from a router to a desk, couch, or other work station can still be a real win, especially given how inexpensive even very long ethernet cables are from Monoprice.com. They last forever, aren't subject to the level of interference wireless is, and, in many conditions, have faster data transfer speeds. Ethernet is still great.
- pjmlp 14y ago
  I do the same, because my building is so crowded the connection drops all the time, even if I am sitting next to the router. :(
  - fencepost 14y ago
    Switch to 5 GHz. You'll need a new router and WiFi adapters, but they're available. You won't have quite the range, but even business locations with dozens of 2.4 GHz networks (e.g. Physician office buildings) will have 1-2 5GHz networks total, and most off the shelf consumer laptops don't support it right now so adoption will take a while.
    - jthol 14y ago
      Stop telling people to do this. I like my roomy uncluttered 5ghz spectrum.
      - A1kmm 14y ago
        Part of the problem with 2.4 GHz in big buildings is that it passes relatively well through building materials, so that in a large building you get a lot of noise from equipment owned by other residents. Someone measured the difference in transmissivity for different materials at 2 and 5 GHz (http://www.ko4bb.com/Manuals/05)_GPS_Timing/E10589_Propagation_Losses_2_and_5GHz.pdf http://www.ko4bb.com/Manuals/05)_GPS_Timing/E10589_Propagati...) - the difference is quite large for brick and cinder block; unfortunately, they didn't measure insulation foil, which I expect would be quite a good RF shield, especially if earthed. So if everyone switched to 5 GHz, the interference situation might still be better than if everyone was on 2.4 GHz. Of course, being an early adopter of 5GHz probably helps with the other problem in apartment buildings, the 'prisoners dilemma' type problem where everyone who knows how ups their transmit power because of the noise, making the problem worse for everyone else but temporarily better for them, when if everyone lowered their power, everyone would get better speeds (exactly analogous to how everyone ends up shouting when having a conversation with the person next to them at a party, when if everyone talked quietly instead communication would be more successful).
    - josteink 14y ago
      This works until "everyone" takes your advice and switches to 5ghz.
      - ejdyksen 14y ago
        Not necessary. The 5ghz band has a lot more channels available (21 in the US), and all of those are 20mhz wide with no overlap. You would have to live in an extremely dense apartment building to start to run into interference issues. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels
  - dhughes 14y ago
    If possible increase the transmit output milliwatts, to "shout over" the other signals on the same channel. Increase the beacon period of your router/AP to the fastest it will go, usually 20 microseconds. I think this is the best solution of anything you could try. Maybe play around with the DTIM interval but I'm not sure what a good number for that is; too low supposedly drains batteries of wireless devices and too high causes other problems. Max out RTS/CTS but you may lose overall throughput but that's no loss if it suck already, in for a lamb in for a sheep. There are other settings too most explained in the help section of the AP/router help menu. They can be obscure but fiddling with them can help your AP signal a lot. That's my unofficial educated guess theory.
    - ansible 14y ago
      I actually design wireless devices for a living and in my opinion, this is mostly bad advice. The best bet it to switch to 5GHz, but that isn't practical for use with mobile devices. Option B is to turn off the higher speed modes like 802.11n. Just try to stick with 11g. If you are still having connection problems, maybe switch down to 11b, but that will be real slow even when it works. If you use an access point with detatchable antennas (which is actually most of them if you open the cover), then maybe replace the omni-directional antenna with a high-gain directional antenna (also known as a patch antenna). Then you'll need to point the antenna at where you sit. Another (probably lousy) option to try (but very quick and cheap) is to move off of the commonly used WiFi channels (1, 6, 11). They are commonly used because they don't overlap with each other. So maybe try 4 or 9. The downside is that you will get interference from two commonly used channels, but the overall situation may be better than what you've got now.
      - pjmlp 14y ago
        Thanks for the tips.
      - mturmon 14y ago
        Thanks for this. You say "switch to 5GHz, but that isn't practical for use with mobile devices" -- is the reasoning that the 5GHz signal doesn't penetrate the walls enough as you walk around with the device?
- happycube 14y ago
  Agreed - always use wired when possible, especially if you have gigabit-capable equipment. Note that in most cases wireless systems are far slower than theoretical speed, but 100Mbit wired ethernet is good for 90+ in both directions simultaneously, so in most cases it'll be faster than 802.11n, and with better and more consistent latency.
- josteink 14y ago
  > They last forever, aren't subject to the level of interference wireless is, and, in many conditions, have faster data transfer speeds. Ethernet is still great. Take away "in many conditions" and replace with "always, without exception" and replace "faster" with a "at least a magnitude faster" and we are in agreement. If you need performance and reliability (like for instance for iScsi) there is really nothing which even compares to wired ethernet.
ricardobeat 14y ago
The RT-N56U is one of the best routers I've ever used. Great transfer rates, strong signal in both bands, gigabit ports, and the management panel is pretty decent if you don't want to install Tomato.
MikeCodeAwesome 14y ago
I, too, switched to the RT-N16 after my WRT54GL died unceremoniously one day. The RT-N16 is a pretty good router but I want to caution any one who, like me, was awestruck by its 128MB RAM without considering NVRAM. The short version is that, depending on your usage, you may run out of NVRAM before RAM and may lose your settings. For reference see [1] and [2]. [1] http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_RT-N16#Current_Known_Issues_and_Bugs http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_RT-N16#Current_Kno... [2] http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=506126 http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=506126
- josteink 14y ago
  NVRAM should definitely be a top consideration. If you want to add any sorts of third party tools or customization to your router you will want plenty of it. I have 32MB NVRAM to play with and that has served me well enough, but I see plenty of consumer-routers which can be "upgraded to dd-wrt" but which doesn't even have enough NVRAM to do an ipkg update.

jseliger 14y ago

Definitely. There appear to be more than 30 named networks within range of my iMac. That's one reason I've wired my iMac and my fiancee's iMac with cat6; as I wrote in another comment day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5192837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5192837 : It's also amazing how prevalent Ethernet still is, even when wireless is a competitor. The other day I left this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052448 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5052448 on HN, because in some circumstances running a cheap ethernet cable from a router to a desk, couch, or other work station can still be a real win, especially given how inexpensive even very long ethernet cables are from Monoprice.com. They last forever, aren't subject to the level of interference wireless is, and, in many conditions, have faster data transfer speeds. Ethernet is still great.

pjmlp 14y ago
I do the same, because my building is so crowded the connection drops all the time, even if I am sitting next to the router. :(
- fencepost 14y ago
  Switch to 5 GHz. You'll need a new router and WiFi adapters, but they're available. You won't have quite the range, but even business locations with dozens of 2.4 GHz networks (e.g. Physician office buildings) will have 1-2 5GHz networks total, and most off the shelf consumer laptops don't support it right now so adoption will take a while.
  - jthol 14y ago
    Stop telling people to do this. I like my roomy uncluttered 5ghz spectrum.
    - A1kmm 14y ago
      Part of the problem with 2.4 GHz in big buildings is that it passes relatively well through building materials, so that in a large building you get a lot of noise from equipment owned by other residents. Someone measured the difference in transmissivity for different materials at 2 and 5 GHz (http://www.ko4bb.com/Manuals/05)_GPS_Timing/E10589_Propagation_Losses_2_and_5GHz.pdf http://www.ko4bb.com/Manuals/05)_GPS_Timing/E10589_Propagati...) - the difference is quite large for brick and cinder block; unfortunately, they didn't measure insulation foil, which I expect would be quite a good RF shield, especially if earthed. So if everyone switched to 5 GHz, the interference situation might still be better than if everyone was on 2.4 GHz. Of course, being an early adopter of 5GHz probably helps with the other problem in apartment buildings, the 'prisoners dilemma' type problem where everyone who knows how ups their transmit power because of the noise, making the problem worse for everyone else but temporarily better for them, when if everyone lowered their power, everyone would get better speeds (exactly analogous to how everyone ends up shouting when having a conversation with the person next to them at a party, when if everyone talked quietly instead communication would be more successful).
  - josteink 14y ago
    This works until "everyone" takes your advice and switches to 5ghz.
    - ejdyksen 14y ago
      Not necessary. The 5ghz band has a lot more channels available (21 in the US), and all of those are 20mhz wide with no overlap. You would have to live in an extremely dense apartment building to start to run into interference issues. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels
- dhughes 14y ago
  If possible increase the transmit output milliwatts, to "shout over" the other signals on the same channel. Increase the beacon period of your router/AP to the fastest it will go, usually 20 microseconds. I think this is the best solution of anything you could try. Maybe play around with the DTIM interval but I'm not sure what a good number for that is; too low supposedly drains batteries of wireless devices and too high causes other problems. Max out RTS/CTS but you may lose overall throughput but that's no loss if it suck already, in for a lamb in for a sheep. There are other settings too most explained in the help section of the AP/router help menu. They can be obscure but fiddling with them can help your AP signal a lot. That's my unofficial educated guess theory.
  - ansible 14y ago
    I actually design wireless devices for a living and in my opinion, this is mostly bad advice. The best bet it to switch to 5GHz, but that isn't practical for use with mobile devices. Option B is to turn off the higher speed modes like 802.11n. Just try to stick with 11g. If you are still having connection problems, maybe switch down to 11b, but that will be real slow even when it works. If you use an access point with detatchable antennas (which is actually most of them if you open the cover), then maybe replace the omni-directional antenna with a high-gain directional antenna (also known as a patch antenna). Then you'll need to point the antenna at where you sit. Another (probably lousy) option to try (but very quick and cheap) is to move off of the commonly used WiFi channels (1, 6, 11). They are commonly used because they don't overlap with each other. So maybe try 4 or 9. The downside is that you will get interference from two commonly used channels, but the overall situation may be better than what you've got now.
    - pjmlp 14y ago
      Thanks for the tips.
    - mturmon 14y ago
      Thanks for this. You say "switch to 5GHz, but that isn't practical for use with mobile devices" -- is the reasoning that the 5GHz signal doesn't penetrate the walls enough as you walk around with the device?
happycube 14y ago
Agreed - always use wired when possible, especially if you have gigabit-capable equipment. Note that in most cases wireless systems are far slower than theoretical speed, but 100Mbit wired ethernet is good for 90+ in both directions simultaneously, so in most cases it'll be faster than 802.11n, and with better and more consistent latency.
josteink 14y ago
> They last forever, aren't subject to the level of interference wireless is, and, in many conditions, have faster data transfer speeds. Ethernet is still great. Take away "in many conditions" and replace with "always, without exception" and replace "faster" with a "at least a magnitude faster" and we are in agreement. If you need performance and reliability (like for instance for iScsi) there is really nothing which even compares to wired ethernet.

ricardobeat 14y ago

The RT-N56U is one of the best routers I've ever used. Great transfer rates, strong signal in both bands, gigabit ports, and the management panel is pretty decent if you don't want to install Tomato.

MikeCodeAwesome 14y ago

I, too, switched to the RT-N16 after my WRT54GL died unceremoniously one day. The RT-N16 is a pretty good router but I want to caution any one who, like me, was awestruck by its 128MB RAM without considering NVRAM. The short version is that, depending on your usage, you may run out of NVRAM before RAM and may lose your settings. For reference see [1] and [2]. [1] http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_RT-N16#Current_Known_Issues_and_Bugs http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_RT-N16#Current_Kno... [2] http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=506126 http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=506126

josteink 14y ago
NVRAM should definitely be a top consideration. If you want to add any sorts of third party tools or customization to your router you will want plenty of it. I have 32MB NVRAM to play with and that has served me well enough, but I see plenty of consumer-routers which can be "upgraded to dd-wrt" but which doesn't even have enough NVRAM to do an ipkg update.