Router advice...

poseidon · #1 04-03-2008, 02:14 PM

I currently have a wireless router that does a decent job, it is a Wireless G router. The signal reaches all rooms of my house.

Yesterday, I upgraded my DSL from 1.5mbs to 7.0mbs because I've got a VoIP phone that I use for work. The quality was horrible, even with the QoS giving 100% priority to the phone.

Now, the phone quality seems better, almost clear.

I'm not sure, however, that my router is the best one for the job. So, I thought I'd ask some of you smarter people what, if anything, I should do.

We run three laptops, one of which is on 24/7, one of which is on a few days a week, and one of which I run once a week (the few days a week one is my wife's and the 1x/week one is my WindowsXP machine).

My 24/7 machine has an N-card in it. So, it can pull up any WiFi 801.22 signal out there. My wife's machine and the XP machine can pull in 801.22b/g signals. I truly don't care about the XP machine, so we could perhaps leave that out of the equation.

If I want to take full advantage of the 7mbs DSL, should I upgrade my router? Is there a true difference in speed between an N-router and a G-router that I would see wirelessly? Would the N-router also increase the bandwidth speed for my VoIP phone?

Thanks, and I look forward to your input,
Jeff

**drmomentum**[$] · #2 04-03-2008, 03:56 PM

One thing to consider: I don't believe a router can simultaneously support more than one protocol. So, if you have 3 laptops, and one is at b, another g, and another n, I believe your router will make all the cards drop down to the b standard and communicate in that protocol. I can't say this with absolute certainty, but knowledgeable network specialists have told me that this is true for b/g routers.

I believe they have tried to build in protection against legacy protocols impacting on n protocol communications, but there seems to be acknowledgment that there can still be interference between n protocol and b/g protocol.

Additionally, I'm also not quite sure the n protocol is a standard yet. The draft on n protocol isn't even finalized yet, if I understand correctly.

At home, I use g, and I can stream Netflix movies on my 3-year-old-and-never-upgraded Dell laptop with no problem. Do I need a faster network than that? I can't imagine how it would improve my life.

At work, we have a variety of wireless routers, and we test classroom network technology on them, I haven't noticed better performance on everyday tasks when I use the n router.

I think you need to define "full advantage." Are you downloading lots of music via Bittorrent or streaming many simultaneous videos?

You're probably OK with the b/g router, unless you're having specific problems. And I assume the VOIP phone is wired, not wireless, The n protocol is only for wireless.

That said, my wife wants me to buy her this router:

poseidon · #3 04-03-2008, 05:01 PM

JP,

Thanks. The VoIP phone is my greatest concern and was the whole reason for upgrading from 1.5 to 7.0mbps. This is my business line and everyone was complaining about the poor quality. I'm hoping that the increase in speed (I'm actually pulling @5.6mbps through the DSL line according to a speed test) will remedy this problem.

I had no problems surfing before and don't care if the speed of surfing is increased or not, but I have to admit that when I access my company's server to download a huge graphic file, it would be nice to download a 65mb file in less time than an hour through the VPN.

I have noticed an improvement in speed when downloading these files. My phone, unfortunately, has not rung yet to allow me to test the quality. I never had problems hearing people, they had problems hearing me, so it isn't as if I can just dial the local time or something...

Thanks though, for your answer. I did speak to a computer guru and he told me that until I am reaching a speed greater than 54mbps on my incoming, all a "faster" router will do is increase the speed between machines in my own house. The "bottleneck" is still the Internet connection to my house.

Jeff

**drmomentum**[$] · #4 04-03-2008, 06:35 PM

If you're downloading 65mb files often enough, I can see why you're concerned about speed. That's a hefty file!

Something else to consider -- if your laptop has an ethernet card in it, you can try plugging the laptop into the router and running that speed test again. That takes the wireless out of the equation. You can compare that to the test with the wireless.

If your wired network is faster, then you could also consider temporarily plugging into the wired network when you're doing really heavy file transfer. I do this at work all the time because I am close to a drop and I sometimes have to download developer DVD images to my laptop.

This is only feasible if it's convenient to plug into the router, and if your large downloads are infrequent, like mine are.

Best of luck,
-JP

nc10 · #5 04-03-2008, 10:34 PM

Quote:

poseidon said

I'm not sure, however, that my router is the best one for the job. So, I thought I'd ask some of you smarter people what, if anything, I should do.

This test might provide some useful info:
MySpeed VoIP quality test, test VoIP connection quality

I have a Dlink 655 router, and a cox cable connection. I have a VOIP phone (magicjack) that I use occasionally, the call quality sounds ok to me, and those I speak to say its ok "most of the time". Reviews I read on the router before I bought it several months ago said it performed better than most others in mixed mode tests. Haven't looked much at whats available now, though.

brian_igo · #6 04-03-2008, 11:00 PM

I think you're asking the wrong questions, Jeff.

You should be asking why you needed to add 5.5mbps of bandwidth to get a good connection on something that uses no more than 90kbps and is tagged by default to have the highest priority of almost all traffic on your network. You should be able to put more than a dozen simultaneous VOIP sessions on the 1.5mbps connection you originally had.

First question, and it might be stupid so bear with me. You have DSL. Are you using the wall jacks for your telephones?

poseidon · #7 04-04-2008, 08:27 AM

Quote:

brian_igo said

I think you're asking the wrong questions, Jeff.

You should be asking why you needed to add 5.5mbps of bandwidth to get a good connection on something that uses no more than 90kbps and is tagged by default to have the highest priority of almost all traffic on your network. You should be able to put more than a dozen simultaneous VOIP sessions on the 1.5mbps connection you originally had.

First question, and it might be stupid so bear with me. You have DSL. Are you using the wall jacks for your telephones?

Yes, but they're on DSL filters. The VoIP phone, of course, plugs into the router.

I can change the DSL router if needed, although it sounds like I don't have to. As far as the VoIP router, that's company-provided.

brian_igo · #8 04-04-2008, 09:08 AM

That's probably your problem. VOIP will often have degraded sound quality when its not on an isolated network.

You might want to compare costs for a set of 5.8GHz phones where only the base unit plugs into the VOIP router, or a non-DSL broadband service.

poseidon · #9 04-04-2008, 10:16 AM

Quote:

brian_igo said

That's probably your problem. VOIP will often have degraded sound quality when its not on an isolated network.

You might want to compare costs for a set of 5.8GHz phones where only the base unit plugs into the VOIP router, or a non-DSL broadband service.

My VoIP phone is wired, not wireless. It plugs into the VoIP router, which then plugs into my regular router.

My home phones are landlined, not VoIP. They are all cordless, and only one base unit (5.8mHz as a matter of fact), and they're not being used while I'm using my VoIP phone.

Am I misunderstanding something?

Jeff