Best combined modem/wireless router?

SlimCini

KC and the Sunshine BANNED
Hi all. Recommendations please. I have a plusnet hub one and it's WiFi overall is a disgrace. I don't want to buy a wireless only router and have to use the hub one in modem mode as already tried that and the hub one has issues with port forwarding with some of my stuff which hours of third party tech support hasn't solved. So basically want to replace the hub one with one bit of tech.

Anyone recommend a quality combined modem/router with strong wireless performance? Budget up to £200.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
I would highly highly recommend still considering a seperate router paired with wifi mesh system. You can pick up a really decent router for next to nothing as you don't need bells and whistles of integrated wifi (which is the expensive bit), and then you could pair with a good mesh setup depending on the size of your house. I opted for 3 x Google Wifi which is considered excellent for reliability and price trading off some overall speeds and I have to say it's completely transformed my wireless performance throughout the entire house (5 bedroom) and garden. I seriously can't recommend them enough, the performance improvement over bog standard router (even a very expensive one) is just night and day. Essentially, (depending on the size of area that needs covering) you could easily factor in a 3rd party router and mesh system under that budget.

If you are going down a single router option, I've had a lot of success with Asus, they've been one of the few exempt from the major security flaws that people like Netgear, Linksys and others have suffered from.

There's a great article here on current best picks:

 

SlimCini

KC and the Sunshine BANNED
I would highly highly recommend still considering a seperate router paired with wifi mesh system. You can pick up a really decent router for next to nothing as you don't need bells and whistles of integrated wifi (which is the expensive bit), and then you could pair with a good mesh setup depending on the size of your house. I opted for 3 x Google Wifi which is considered excellent for reliability and price trading off some overall speeds and I have to say it's completely transformed my wireless performance throughout the entire house (5 bedroom) and garden. I seriously can't recommend them enough, the performance improvement over bog standard router (even a very expensive one) is just night and day. Essentially, (depending on the size of area that needs covering) you could easily factor in a 3rd party router and mesh system under that budget.

If you are going down a single router option, I've had a lot of success with Asus, they've been one of the few exempt from the major security flaws that people like Netgear, Linksys and others have suffered from.

There's a great article here on current best picks:

Interesting. Never even bothered reading about them thinking it was a gimmick. Now very tempted. Still don't want to use the plusnet hub. I know nothing about routers. Any recommendations?
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Interesting. Never even bothered reading about them thinking it was a gimmick. Now very tempted. Still don't want to use the plusnet hub. I know nothing about routers. Any recommendations?

I’ll have a look during my lunch break. The one I’ve got is quite old now but as a modem it’s fantastic, and the ASUS configuration management just makes port forwarding and setup an absolute breeze.

I’ll post back a bit later.

What sort of size is your place roughly in sq foot? Or how many floors/bedrooms?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Asus entry level VDSL/ADSL router is just under £80 currently:


I bought a dual compatible router (ie takes Cable or Fiber connections), but if you're more settled and know what you're kinda set for, you can save further on getting a dedicated ADSL or VDSL router specific to your needs.

Google are currently doing an offer on a single node at £99:


Google state roughly the following area mapping depending on how many nodes:


Number of Wifi pointsHome size*
1Up to 85 sq. metres
285 - 170 sq. metres
3+More than 170 sq. metres

The benefits about this kind of setup are:

1/. Router will handle any connection likely for many years to come. Asus are excellent at updates and roll them out very quickly after a flaw is found. With that said though, Asus themselves seem to be more protected from serious flaws specific to manufacturers.

2/. Expandable system. A mesh setup is expensive, but again, for future planning, it makes it much more affordable in that you can just add more nodes if you need more area covered. Adding nodes is literally a case of scanning a barcode on the back of the node whilst it's powered on and BAM, it's part of your network. Very very clever.

3/. Beamforming and AI Switching. These mesh setups will actually direct their signals to where the signal is most required within range. I often work on my laptop in the kitchen which is an offshoot from the main house and has always been a nightmare to cover satisfactorily. These things will actually target it intelligently, you can see the signal strength increase on the laptop as you start to work on it. It's pretty cool. As you move around the house, there's no dropouts switching between nodes, they all operate as one very effectively.

4/. Administration. As I understand it, all mesh systems are administered via an app on your mobile, and they've all done really great work at simplifying the processes. The Google app is brilliant, gives you a lot of control, but started out quite limited. They add features every couple of months.

Drawbacks:

1/. Heavy investment in a particular class of wifi. You have to bear in mind how quickly technology moves on, and this massively encompasses wifi technology atm. We're now on Wifi 6 which is insanely fast. Mobile networks are about to become faster than most office cabled networks. If you are to invest in a mesh setup, you're stuck for a while on that class. The Google Wifi is AC which is one under the current Wifi 6. I think any Wifi 6 mesh will be crazy expensive because it's such a ginormous leap in performance. For me, the stability the network provides is more important to me than transfer rates. My limitation on network transfers is not wifi, but my data drive speeds on my server where I transfer media to, and there's masses of headroom for this to increase on the current mesh setup when I upgrade the drives to SSD's, so it doesn't really bother me.

2/. Overall cost. Again, it is expensive, but for me, after getting so frustrated with PowerLine Adapters and wifi routers and access points never managing to do the job, the cost was low down on priority list.


I think the google wifi is one of the cheapest mesh setups trading speeds for reliability. If you're looking for something with a bit more oomph, check out the netgear orbi's which are very highly rated and fast as hell.
 

SlimCini

KC and the Sunshine BANNED
Amazing thanks. I've done some more research and it sounds like the plusnet hub one can never go into true bridge mode anyway so mesh networks will only work properly with plusnet if you get a third party modem.

I've seen the netgear dm200 recommended by several plusnet Google mesh users and its only £30 so might try that first.

I know it's only AC1200 but I'm thinking how much bandwidth do I really need when there's max only two of us doing anything on the network and only one 4k device in the house to stream 4k Netflix too?!

My only worry is apparently you can't choose 2.4 channels on Google wifi and my ring doorbell only detects channels 1-11 so I'd be fooked if Google auto assigned 12 or 13 on 2.4.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Amazing thanks. I've done some more research and it sounds like the plusnet hub one can never go into true bridge mode anyway so mesh networks will only work properly with plusnet if you get a third party modem.

I've seen the netgear dm200 recommended by several plusnet Google mesh users and its only £30 so might try that first.

I know it's only AC1200 but I'm thinking how much bandwidth do I really need when there's max only two of us doing anything on the network and only one 4k device in the house to stream 4k Netflix too?!

My only worry is apparently you can't choose 2.4 channels on Google wifi and my ring doorbell only detects channels 1-11 so I'd be fooked if Google auto assigned 12 or 13 on 2.4.

Yeah, that is a pretty major drawback that you can’t assign channels. It hops around the spectrum based on noise in the area, nice feature, but not going to work well for you.

That’s a shame.

That’s about my level of knowledge on this at the moment, I’ve been so heavily pushing mesh networks for a couple of years haven’t looked into anything else!

I’ll leave it up to someone else with more experience of current routers.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

joanwelms

New member
I would highly highly recommend still considering a seperate router paired with wifi mesh system. You can pick up a really decent router for next to nothing as you don't need bells and whistles of integrated wifi (which is the expensive bit), and then you could pair with a good mesh setup depending on the size of your house. I opted for 3 x Google Wifi which is considered excellent for reliability and price trading off some overall speeds and I have to say it's completely transformed my wireless performance throughout the entire house (5 bedroom) and garden. I seriously can't recommend them enough, the performance improvement over bog standard router (even a very expensive one) is just night and day. Essentially, (depending on the size of area that needs covering) you could easily factor in a 3rd party router and mesh system under that budget.

If you are going down a single router option, I've had a lot of success with Asus, they've been one of the few exempt from the major security flaws that people like Netgear, Linksys and others have suffered from.

There's a great article here on current best picks:
10.0 0.0 1 wifi
Hello all,

I am currently looking to upgrade my router and modem as they are both on their way out after a good 4 years of usage, right now I have a Netgear R7000 AC1900 router and a CM700 modem. I don't mind sticking to Netgear but if there are other options that are more recommended i would love to expand my horizons. I live in a family home with three people who are all heavy internet users, we currently have Cox's 300 download and 30 upload package, most of our hardware is wired in but stuff like smart phones and TVs are wireless and in the case of the TV are bit far from the router and have a couple walls to go through. I would like a router that has an extremely solid WiFi band but also has features that could help me, who is an avid gamer. I have heard that "gaming" routers are mostly filler with their features and what they provide is not worth the cost, but if there is a router that is a nice in-between that provides good signal while having things like proper QoS that would be awesome. Of course i'd also like a modem to go with so if you guys have any idea on which two to choose i would love to hear your thoughts! Preferably would like to keep the total below $500 but if for a little more we get big improvements willing to venture out. Thank you so much.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Hello all,

I am currently looking to upgrade my router and modem as they are both on their way out after a good 4 years of usage, right now I have a Netgear R7000 AC1900 router and a CM700 modem. I don't mind sticking to Netgear but if there are other options that are more recommended i would love to expand my horizons. I live in a family home with three people who are all heavy internet users, we currently have Cox's 300 download and 30 upload package, most of our hardware is wired in but stuff like smart phones and TVs are wireless and in the case of the TV are bit far from the router and have a couple walls to go through. I would like a router that has an extremely solid WiFi band but also has features that could help me, who is an avid gamer. I have heard that "gaming" routers are mostly filler with their features and what they provide is not worth the cost, but if there is a router that is a nice in-between that provides good signal while having things like proper QoS that would be awesome. Of course i'd also like a modem to go with so if you guys have any idea on which two to choose i would love to hear your thoughts! Preferably would like to keep the total below $500 but if for a little more we get big improvements willing to venture out. Thank you so much.
As above, I would stick with your current router and then add a mesh WiFi later on top. Something like the Eero
 
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