New router - which one?
 

To the wiz's - I am changing a router that I have been sharing for a while. I now need one I can use for my system only. Bearing in mind the future possibility that internet speed may well go up to 20mb or more should I get a cheap wireless one now or pay a bit more.

I am not expecting to join the throng of the magnificent who use such devices but I'd like a nice one with one or two areials perhaps. The signal will have to penetrate one floor only to the device I am getting, which is a laptop. Any advice or thoughts will be appreciated.

Belkin. Not only do they work well, the software is easy to understand and you can switch to Open DNS with no problems, which gives you much faster browsing and better security. My Belkin is connected to my WiMax broadband, very common in Spain but I understand not found in the UK.

(No connection with Open DNS but I have been using it for two weeks and it does everying it says on the label.)

I cannot agree about Belkin equipment. I can personally recommend Linksys, and know several people who recommend Draytek. Netgear are OK, cheap & cheerful.

A combination router / firewall / wifi access point is presumably what you are going for.

Do you need an ADSL or a cable device?

802.11g (54mbps) is probably adequate for wifi, and likely compatible with your laptop wifi card. 802.11n is faster, but more expensive - and might require a new wifi card for the lappy.

Given that the LAN / wifi network speed will be comfortably in excess of your intenet connection, I don't think you need to worry about future-proofing in that direction.

SD

ADSL, SD. :ok:

+1 for not Belkin. I have netgear, Linksys & belkin routers & the one that has to be restarted constantly is the Belkin. Just my experience.

I can highly recommend a Billion BiPac 7800N

I got one 3 months ago after very positive reviews and it has worked faultlessly ever since. It's wireless performance is excellent, handling up to 5 wireless devices simultaneously.

Billion 7401VGP (now a few years old) here. Works well. Only a single antenna, but wireless performance is very good. The manual is a bit technical if you like it that way, but the basic setup is simple and works as expected.

My daughter bought the current version Billion to replace her misbehaving Belkin a few months ago. That also seems to be working very well.

I have bought a second one as a standby - just in case.

YMMV of course ...

FOR

+1 on the Billion Bipac 7800N

Had no end of wireless connection problems with my old router. Upgraded to the Billion a while back and it's not let me down yet, even with multiple streaming wireless music players connected at times :ok:

Thanks for your ideas, they helped a lot. In the end I got Linskys Cisco 120n. It took some getting installed because my ISP (TalkTalk) rejected it. Got that sorted and it fair leaps along. As you will recall its now on its own and not shared.

Thanks again.

PPP

Here's another place you've gone wrong.