Wireless Router Advice

[msteelers]

Hi guys. I need some advice on a wireless router. I've been using a Linksys Wireless G Router (WRT54G2 V1 model) for several years now. I bought this when I was living in an apartment, but now I'm in a bigger house and we are looking to upgrade the router so that it can reach the opposite side of the house.

My step-father went out and bought a Linksys E2500 Dual-Band N Router. I checked out some reviews for it, and one of the knocks against it was that it had a very limited range. The CNET review said it should be limited to a small apartment or dorm. Does anyone have any experience with this router, and can you confirm if the range is as bad as the review makes it out to be? Do you have any suggestions for a router we can look for?

Thanks!

[gellar]

No specific advice, but some general advice:

In my experience, N networks have good unobstructed range, but once you start putting walls in between stuff they start sucking.  G networks have lower unobstructed range, but punch through walls considerably better.

For example in my house, I have a dual band router and my office gets a strong G signal but a piss poor N signal, but that's due to the three walls/rooms between my office and the living room.

[Calavera]

I strongly suggest getting a high powered router. Buffalo and Netgear tend to be favorites, though the new Asus routers are really nice and are well liked.

I use the Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N with a high gain antenna (19 dbi TP-Link) and have 0 range issues. The whole setup was about $90.

While anecdotally you might hear the G is better, N will maintain the same throughput with a poorer signal and will have higher throughput on a higher signal. G and N operate in the same freqencies but N uses more channels within the frequency. 5GHz N is actually fairly rare on PCs, most consumer gear only supports 2.4GHz as 5GHz is an optional part of the spec.

Small Net Builder has good advice and reviews.