[Col Mehta]

Originally Posted by 5hadow

Meanwhile, another ISP, Excitel, came up with better plans and I switched to it.

Considering the above, I went for Tp-Link Ac750 and saved some money.

Hi, I thought Excitel broaband needs a WAN port which this TP Link AC750 doesn't seem to have. What am I missing? I'm also considering this router but not sure if it is compatible. Thanks.

Originally Posted by deep_bang

Once you login to your router, you should be able to browse around the menus.

Which exact model is it?

It's a TP Link TL-WR841N with 300 Mbps, 2.5 GHz. I might jump into the menu and see if anything comes up to play with. Thanks.

Originally Posted by R2D2

I'd recommend getting a modern AC router which has the muscle to stream HD video. There have been a few suggestions on this thread in posts going back a year or so. I'd recommend products from Asus, Linksys and TP Link in order of preference.

Traffic management/shaping is switched off by default but I doubt a 300 Mbps router (considered pretty basic by today's standards) will have this feature. Moving the router closer to the TV which can enhance the wireless signal may help.

Read quite a few posts in this thread and I think a decent AC router might do the trick. One question - Saw a few posts and understood that 5GHz routers are slower than 2.5GHz ones? Not sure how it works. Let's say we want to stream online HD content on our smart TV, along with some mobile phones, laptops, Play Station, what do you recommend?

How about a WiFi repeater? Or maybe placing the current router near to TV seems like the best option?

Thanks for your inputs.

[blackwasp]

Having a weird problem. Recently renovated my home and did ethernet cabling for each bedroom from a central point in the house. Was using a mix of wired and wireless modes using the existing router (Tenda AC6 dual band) and all of a sudden it went bad, no lights at all and I'm guessing the power adapter went. Since last 2 days using an older DIR 600 till I get the Tenda one sorted and last night same thing. It went out as well. However the power LED is turning on, but nothing else is happening.

Now, my suspect is the power socket, but is there any possibility of ethernet cables causing this?

Any pointers are most welcome. Or it was just a coincidence that both routers went out at the same time?

PS- the wiring looks good as separate channeling was used for ethernet cables, away from the ones for the mains.

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

Hi, I thought Excitel broaband needs a WAN port which this TP Link AC750 doesn't seem to have. What am I missing? I'm also considering this router but not sure if it is compatible. Thanks.

All home routers have WAN ports. In this case check for the port labelled 'internet' that is a synonym for WAN. These ports are colour coded blue or a different colour from the rest to make it easy to differentiate. Normally routers have 4 or 5 ports in total, 1 WAN and the rest LAN

Saw a few posts and understood that 5GHz routers are slower than 2.5GHz ones? Not sure how it works. Let's say we want to stream online HD content on our smart TV, along with some mobile phones, laptops, Play Station, what do you recommend?

Dual band routers have 5 and 2.4 GHz tranceivers. 5 GHz routers are faster **provided** there are no obstructions like walls, metal cupboards, wardrobes etc that can absorb the signal. You trade signal range for speed. For range stick to a 2.4 GHz signal.

How about a WiFi repeater? Or maybe placing the current router near to TV seems like the best option?

Repeaters have mixed results. Place the router near the TV before you invest in any additional equipment.

[deep_bang]

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

Read quite a few posts in this thread and I think a decent AC router might do the trick. One question - Saw a few posts and understood that 5GHz routers are slower than 2.5GHz ones? Not sure how it works. Let's say we want to stream online HD content on our smart TV, along with some mobile phones, laptops, Play Station, what do you recommend?

How about a WiFi repeater? Or maybe placing the current router near to TV seems like the best option?

Thanks for your inputs.

I run my tv with fire tv stick and the solution I found was to keep the router near to the TV. Further, since I also end up taking meetings etc on the same line on which other at home are using for streaming video, I also think you need some sort of a bandwidth controller at the router side. That ensures that in case of issues later, you can fine-tune.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

Read quite a few posts in this thread and I think a decent AC router might do the trick. One question - Saw a few posts and understood that 5GHz routers are slower than 2.5GHz ones?

I think 5 GHz scores generally with stronger signal at closer ranges.

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

Let's say we want to stream online HD content on our smart TV, along with some mobile phones, laptops, Play Station, what do you recommend?

If HD content streaming is your problem, then the root cause could be buggy software or throughput. For the former you need to read reviews and understand where you stand before purchase (in my experience, most home routers don't get many software upgrades) or be prepared to flash with OpenWRT or something. For the latter: remember that the advertised 300 Mbps is for 802.11n, which your edge devices might not be supporting; most likely they are on 802.11g whose max is 54 Mbps. Drop the quality of content to match your network's performance limits.

One thing you could do is to see if your TV has an RJ45 port and directly connect it to the router if it has.

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

How about a WiFi repeater? Or maybe placing the current router near to TV seems like the best option?

Wifi repeating is good to get signal to areas to get WhatsApp etc. working, but not good for streaming in my opinion. Nothing beats a cable connection.

[Col Mehta]

Thanks everyone for contributing. Much obliged. I guess will start with placing the router near to our TV. If that doesn't help, we might get a new AC router. Anything comes up, I'll come back to you experts.

[5hadow]

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

Hi, I thought Excitel broaband needs a WAN port which this TP Link AC750 doesn't seem to have. What am I missing? I'm also considering this router but not sure if it is compatible. Thanks.

Basically, what R2D2 said. I have attached a picture (taken from Amazon's product page). The blue marked port is the WAN (internet) port.

My 2 cents - This router was recommended by the Excitel representative. He mentioned that this is the recommended router for 75 and 100 Mbps connections. Although, I have 50 Mbps I bought it to give me some headroom for the near future. Secondly, you might want to wait for JioGigaFibre to launch on 15th August before you decide to make any purchases. It will most likely be a game changer and other ISPs will be showering freebies to compete.

[Col Mehta]

Originally Posted by 5hadow

Basically, what R2D2 said. I have attached a picture (taken from Amazon's product page). The blue marked port is the WAN (internet) port.

My 2 cents - This router was recommended by the Excitel representative. He mentioned that this is the recommended router for 75 and 100 Mbps connections. Although, I have 50 Mbps I bought it to give me some headroom for the near future. Secondly, you might want to wait for JioGigaFibre to launch on 15th August before you decide to make any purchases. It will most likely be a game changer and other ISPs will be showering freebies to compete.

Thanks for the info. We use 75 Mbps plan. Might try that router if nothing else works. And Jio broadband does sound tempting. Would keep an eye on it.

[5hadow]

Originally Posted by Col Mehta

Thanks for the info. We use 75 Mbps plan.

Whoever suggested the router, does not have the right knowledge then. Anyway, my suggestion would be to connect your TV with ethernet cable, if possible, nothing beats that.

[rohan_iitr]

I just ordered a Google Chromecast 2 for my LCD TV.

The specs of Chromecast 2 say that it supports 802.11ac.

Can someone please confirm that it would be backward compatible to 802.11b/g/n ?

Rohan

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

I just ordered a Google Chromecast 2 for my LCD TV. The specs of Chromecast 2 say that it supports 802.11ac. Can someone please confirm that it would be backward compatible to 802.11b/g/n

802.11 AC is backward compatible with previous 802.11 standards. Only thing I'd suggest is using an AC router for best performance and experience.

[raghu.t.k]

Anybody using a multi-wan router at home? With Jio Fiber around the corner was wondering if we I can move to multi-wan(4 wan) router with proper load-sharing. I dont want to move to Jio fully as I dont yet know their long term game-plan. Currently with ACT and I am very happy with their performance

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by raghu.t.k

Anybody using a multi-wan router at home? With Jio Fiber around the corner was wondering if we I can move to multi-wan(4 wan) router with proper load-sharing. I dont want to move to Jio fully as I dont yet know their long term game-plan. Currently with ACT and I am very happy with their performance

I use a Netgate firewall/router running PFSense that can perform dual or even triple WAN load balancing and fail over. Has enough grunt to take on a 1 Gb line, but not with PPPoE which is standard across consumer level Internet lines. I had a dual WAN set up and waiting for Jio fiber to hopefully be available since my building already has the now defunct Reliance Communication's fiber cables.

If interested you should budget over 30K+ for routers or a fan-less PC appliance with AES-NI, Intel NICs and open source firewall router software like PFSense or OPNSense.

But the question is, do you really need it?

[raghu.t.k]

Originally Posted by R2D2

I use a Netgate firewall/router running PFSense that can perform dual or even triple WAN load balancing and fail over. Has enough grunt to take on a 1 Gb line, but not PPPoE. I had a dual WAN set up and waiting for Jio fiber to hopefully be available since my building already has the now defunct Reliance Communication's fiber lines.

If interested you should budget over 30K+ for routers or a fan-less PC appliance with AES-NI, Intel NICs and open source firewall router software like PFSense or OPNSense.

But the question is, do you really need it?

Thanks for the quick response. Will take a look at this. I was looking for a dedicated router something like the SRX5308 – ProSAFE Quad WAN Gigabit SSL VPN Firewall ( dont know how much it would cost) but is already EOL. Let me do some more googling.

In your current setup, do you face any issues with banking/online stores sites where the session needs to be maintained across the pages ?

[ani_meher]

I have TP WE 855 RE range extender, which I use for extending Jio wifi's range. Due to suspicion of hacking, I have enabled Mac address filtering on JioFi, so that only allowed devices can connect.

I have added this extender's Mac address to white list of JioFi. But somehow it doesn't connect to internet by this method. When the filtering is disabled, it works perfectly. But stops working as soon as mac filtering is enabled. I am entering the mac address of the extender properly.

What is going wrong? Any pointers?