Hmm, thanks - I will look into that in the settings.
I think you answered your own question. But, yeah, if you’re not on ac, that will definitely do it.
The router-thing is a beast. It’s almost comical. It has:
Four gigabit ethernet ports
Tri-band wifi
Fiber-optic direct line in (no secondary modem)
Wan port for homes that don’t have fiber-in
Two telphone jacks for home phone
Two DSL ports for Bell TV
TV wi-fi antenna for wireless TV boxes in home
Battery compartment (for internet and phone during power outage) battery sold seperately
A terrible UI that has no QoS, no bridge mode (ISP activated on request), and other missing features, which is maybe why I missed the AC setting.
This has fiber in? Does that work on ATT fiber?
Ha, I get a chuckle out of the idea of someone WANTING access to this monster of privacy-invading, ISP-developed user interface, channel limited (apparently channels or bands are reserved for the TV boxes), jack-of-all trades master-of-none beast. But yes, one feature or benefit is there in that it has direct fiber-in, maybe that means in theory near-zero latency / ping.
I was just thinking it would be cheaper to buy this than rent my modem for my ATT fiber line.
I see it’s about $90 used, but is it ever really possible to move an ISP router to another ISP? My guess is not. Also there are lots of drawbacks as I mentioned.
I turns out I have ac enabled on my 5ghz network, but I’m still only getting 90mb speed. I even tried a seperate SSID for 5ghz, it didn’t help. Any ideas or is this a question for tech support?
I have one of these routers just sitting around unused.
I have mostly B/G devices, except for one Wireless-N adapter that I am also not currently using, but could use if I wanted.
IIRC there are issues with using B/G and N devices on the same router or network. Is this correct? Do I gain anything by using the Wireless-N router versus my trusty old WRT54G, when most of my devices use B/G?
How old is your stuff? Do you have a flip phone?
You should use it. If you’re still on wireless g, a bump up to 300mbps theoretical, 50-90 real, is probably enough for you. It would do 5 simultaneous 4K HDR Netflix streams, and be great for gaming. We’re all obsessed with faster speeds, myself included, that mostly only get used for file transfers in-home.
I think this huge router-thing just won’t cut it in terms of wifi. I set a seperate 5ghz SSID, AC only, and tried all my devices from 10 feet away. Very inconsistent results, but never over 160mbps, sometimes as low as 6mbps.
So I bought the TP Link Re650 which is a higher-end AC2600 wi-fi extender.
Key benefit for me is that I’ll be able to use it in access point mode since I do have an ethernet port in my family room. So, I should get great wi-fi from this thing (MU-MIMO). It might be good enough to disable the wifi on the modem-router completely.
Update for those interested - this seems like a good device and I’ll probably keep it. Same room as the TP Link and my Pixel 2 XL is 272 down, 301 up - much better than before.
Though the ‘easy quickstart’ setup was flawed and didn’t work - ended up being a more advanced exercise and likely would frustrate non-technical users.
Laptop on the kitchen table is 300 down 280 up - good enough for my work use. Upstairs desktop PC on wifi PCIE (a bit far away, but still connecting to this extender) is 80-90 down and up.
Only drawback I can see is that if I walk to the far corner away from the TP Link, my phone drops the 5Ghz SSID and reconnects to the router’s 2.4 which is then a bit sticky.
Running FreshTomato custom firmware on my R7000 and it’s great for power users. Also recommend ASUS RT-AC66U for its stock firmware plus ability to run custom ones.
I will have to check if the newer router has fixes for the “krack” vulnerability. I don’t think my version of DD-WRT has them. (My old router is so old.)
Is there a good resource for learning router/wifi settings? I have this fancy Asus router that I am always having issues with and then I remembered @stusser had told me to turn off airtime fairness (which I had, but only one channel). Turned that off and my problems went away. Was going through my routers settings and there is so much stuff in there and it’s all Greek to me. I would like to learn and understand some of it. The manual doesn’t really explain stuff though. Any advice?
Which ASUS router do you have?
I haven’t seen a really great resource for router settings, no. This site has some info, but it doesn’t tell you that airtime fairness, which sounds like a great thing, isn’t.
RT-AC5300. The gigantic thing with 8 antennas. (I bought something else, but Amazon ran out of them and gave me this instead.)
Thanks @stusser, I’ll read through it.
There are some reports that the originally shipping firmware had problems, so you might want to upgrade it. And if you’re really feeling nerdy, get the Merlin firmware. That’s what I used before I upgraded from my RT-AC68u to more enterprisey hardware.
Is there some page to describe what features are in FreshTomato? I have an R7000 and am interested.