I like the fact that the TP-Link router mentions lightning protection in the specs.
How do you have your WAPs set up? (I'm interested in getting better WAPs)
Er, I must be honest I have given very little thought to my network architecture, which is a mess... BUT it works
and its not really something I am very knowledgable about but here's my approach.
The issue for me is that my office is where all the routers, modems phone lines are and it is on one side of the house. We have a medium sized 4 bedroom house but I have yet to find a WAP that can cover all rooms with sufficient speed and I have tried quite a few. Nowadays everyone in our house wants to stream HD video over wireless and once you get more than a room away you start to get stuttering, in my experience. Here is a pic when I recently testing a Zyxel 8924 for comparison :
We now have 3 WAP's and 3 networks called Office, Downstairs and Upstairs - I tried having them all on the same SSID and found that mobile devices are really bad at switching between networks i.e. you can be standing next to one WAP but if the device originally connected to another then it will try and hang onto the poor signal perform slowly. Nowadays we have 3 discreet networks with different frequencies and names, pffft
- My main WAP "Downstairs" is my Asus AC68U and is located in the lounge, some years ago I ran some Cat 5e round the outside of the house to provide a reliable connection for our HTPC so it uses that.
- In the Office is "Office" my re-purposed TP-Link TD-W8980 acts as a WAP - the firmware is not very helpful for this but it performs pretty well - I have been meaning to flash OpenWRT on it once they resolve the issue with the 5 Ghz not working
- The above two WAP's do not provide a strong enough signal in the master bedroom to stream HD video to our bedroom TV so I installed a TP-Link AV-500 Homeplug WAP "Upstairs" - its a nasty bodge but pretty discreet and work great! I actually have 2 more AV-500's which are normally unplugged and I move around the house when I want to work on a PC or something and want a wired connection, really handy.
I read other peoples posts with interest on this subject (wireless coverage) I think people spend a lot of time trying cover their house with one router - the multiple network approach works best for us at the moment.
Another aside : I have only one 11ac WAP, the AC68U everything else is 11n - I am getting a bit fed up with manufacturers claims of high speeds which require you to buy expensive proprietary adapters and fancy thingies etc etc ..... just add another WAP, lol
I told you it was messy
Chunks