Looking to get away from the rental modem from the cable company and could use a new router while I’m at it. Cable internet. Here are my questions:
Should I wait on DOCSIS 3.1 to really hit the mainstream market to buy a new modem? Don’t live in an area that I imagine will be receiving gigabit anytime soon if that plays into the logic anywhere. Just want an awesome modem that I can trust more than the crap that was thrown my way by the cable company.
For the router: willing to spend up to 250 USD; want to make sure it can handle me playing PS4 wirelessly possibly while my wife streams something on her kindle or something. Would like intuitive logging/monitoring abilities for making sure my cable company is not trying to screw me. Prefer to have 5Ghz channel capability as well.
I personally keep the rental modem, but that's mostly because of the nature of the Mediacom techs. Anything that belongs to me is always the problem, but if I call and their modem says it's offline, theyre on the hook to fix it. I don't know if your ISPs modem rental fee is insane, but if it's not, it might be worth it just to keep using their crappy modem.
For a router, if you're willing to spend that kind of money I assume you want wireless AC. I'd follow @DeusQain 's advice and grab one of the new Linksys AC WiFi routers. If you just need wireless N, you probably can't go wrong with an ASUS.
Another option is, of course, pfSense. You could probably build a good router for less than $250, and way less if you've got a crappy old Windows-XP-era machine that still works. If you go that route, an N Wireless AP from Ubiquiti would be awesome (I can personally vouch for pfSense and Ubiquiti APs) or if you need AC you could drop the cash for an Ubiquiti AC AP.
What kinds of things do you need the router to do? Are you hoping to get into networking and Linux server sort of stuff, or you just want something to work well and get out of the way so you can play games?
For that much on a router I'd grab an itx board and a Celeron g1620. Pick up an intel nic from ebay that fits your board, and an ATX and CPU to DC adapter in whatever enclosure you like. Or even an embedded board ala http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157494
You could go the old machine route, but it will probably eat enough electricity in a year to make forking over the cash now worth it.
As for DOCSIS 3.1, if you can figure the time it will take for it to come to you, and then figure how long you'll have the router and how much the rental costs you figuring out the costs you might go ahead and pick up something like a $40-$50 router to get you off the unreliable rental.
Definitely looking for AC. trying to "future proof". Not a networking expert, so not sure about building it myself but I am interested in tinkering with building a home server with something open source at some point. I guess I should have included Linux compatibility as must as well; glad you asked that.
I do want something that works well and gets out of the way when I want it to but I also want something that won't freak out if I want to dick with the settings myself or do some network monitoring or tunneling. I kind of want it all. of course
Well 3.1 has started rolling out commercially but I haven't looked that far into to know what I might be looking at for one coming to newegg or something. I also don't know if it really offers much of anything over 3.0 apart from gigabit capabilities (which I won't need as mentioned) (I hate the US)
Also looking at what y'all think about throughput. Originally figured I'd make sure I got something like AC2300 or more but from talking with the IT guy at work, I may not need more than AC1900?
The most that be going on on our network (presently) would be one of these scenarios:
Two laptops, Amazon fire stick (streaming at least 720p), a phone or two A laptop, a PS4, a phone or two, or a FireHD tablet (possibly streaming) A laptop, Amazon fire stick, a phone or two, and a gaming desktop*
*The desktop will probably be plugged directly into the modem depending on the modem I get. So it's a possibility it may be plugged into the router. Either way it'll be plugged in.
The laptops are still in the 2.4 band, I think the fire stick is 5.0, the tablet may be as well, and I think one of the phones is old/cheap enough to be stuck in the 2.4 band but the other is 5.0 capable.