In Search of Router

[Joel13]

Hey all! 

I’m looking to expand into my own router as I’m trying to solve an issue with the team & this is one of the suggestions that I want to try. 

I haven’t looked for a router in probably close to 10+ years and would love to know what would be the best options to look into. I know that Asus have some good options and offer openWRT to push it above and beyond. 

To give a little background, I’m currently running approx 47 devices in my network, from a NAS with a few docker instances (just under 10 or so), lightbulbs, door locks, mobile phones, tablets, laptops, smartTV and few others devices that all need to be managed. 

I’m also running Pi-Hole, so DHCP and DNS management needs to be flexible as well. Ideally, since I’m spending a few dollars, I may as well plan ahead and look at Wifi 6e and obviously, if we can avoid placing my Rogers modem in bridge,  that would be best. I think I have read that I can connect directly to my ONT since I am not running any other TV or anything else like that. 

Let me know some suggestions and any clarifiers that I can add! 

Thanks! 

**Labels Added**

[RogersYasmine]

Hey @Joel13 !

Welcome to the Rogers Community! We hope you like it here! 😁🙌

It's possible that your post may have gotten lost in the shuffle! I'll go ahead and tag in some of our more tech-savvy RE's to see if they have any recommendations for you! @Datalink @Gdkitty @-G- 

Have a lovely weekend!

RogersYasmine

[Joel13]

Thanks @RogersYasmine for the bump! Appreciated. 

[-G-]

---

@Joel13 wrote:

Hey all! 

I’m looking to expand into my own router as I’m trying to solve an issue with the team & this is one of the suggestions that I want to try. 

I haven’t looked for a router in probably close to 10+ years and would love to know what would be the best options to look into. I know that Asus have some good options and offer openWRT to push it above and beyond. 

To give a little background, I’m currently running approx 47 devices in my network, from a NAS with a few docker instances (just under 10 or so), lightbulbs, door locks, mobile phones, tablets, laptops, smartTV and few others devices that all need to be managed. 

---

Based on this post , it sounds like whenever your Ignite gateway reboots or gets reset, Wi-Fi drops, your devices drop off the network but not all of them reconnect.  This is certainly a problem with all-in-one gateways.  If this is your biggest problem, you may want to consider using separate Wi-Fi Access Points or perhaps a Wi-Fi Mesh solution.  Your Ignite Gateway may reset but the Wi-Fi network will not, so none of your devices should drop off the network.

However, with that many Wi-Fi devices, you may also be at a point where you would be better off with a business-grade Wi-Fi solution, especially since your problem is also partly caused by limitations with consumer W-Fi chipsets.  Small/Medium business APs can easily handle 200 connected devices.

I’m also running Pi-Hole, so DHCP and DNS management needs to be flexible as well. Ideally, since I’m spending a few dollars, I may as well plan ahead and look at Wifi 6e and obviously, if we can avoid placing my Rogers modem in bridge,  that would be best. I think I have read that I can connect directly to my ONT since I am not running any other TV or anything else like that. 

---

If you have (XGS-PON) FTTH Internet, with a Nokia ONT, your Ignite Gateway cannot be put in bridge mode.  It's acting as a router/firewall and providing Wi-Fi connectivity.  If you do not subscribe to Ignite TV or Ignite Home Phone, you can unplug the Ignite Gateway and replace it with your own router.

It sounds like you are keen on buying an ASUS router.  Based on your stated requirements and your desire to future-proof, you will want a router with at least 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet LAN and WAN ports.  If Wi-Fi 6E is a hard requirement, you will be looking at the GT-AXE16000 or perhaps the ZenWiFi Pro ET12.   If Wi-Fi 6 is good enough, your other options are routers such as the RT-AX86U Pro, the RT-AX88U Pro, or the  ZenWiFi XT9.

All but the ZenWiFi XT9 are supported by Asuswrt-Merlin.  As far as I know, none of these run OpenWrt.

Unfortunately, I don't know how well the Asus gear performs, or whether any of these products are actually fast enough to max out a 2.5 Gigabit connection.  Based on this post, the performance of the GT-AXE16000 is underwhelming, and it does seem to be able to max out a 1.5 Gigabit connection.

Also, the GT-AXE16000 is now already one year old, and even though the RT-AX86U Pro and RT-AX88U Pro are just starting to appear on shelves in Canada, their base hardware platform was released in January, 2022.  Rumour has it that ASUS will start releasing new products (based on a new hardware platform) in another week or two.

As for your desire to future-proof Wi-Fi, keep in mind that Wi-Fi 7 is supposedly just around the corner.

If you have extremely high performance performance requirements, at some point you will outgrow consumer networking gear.  A number of users in the Community use Ubiquiti or TP-Link business-grade access points with 2.5 GigE uplinks, a fast LAN switch (that can support 2.5 or 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports) for their network backbone, and for their router/firewall, will run either pfSense or OPNsense on a (very fast) mini PC box with multiple 2.5 GigE or 10GigE network interfaces.

I'm really not sure what to recommend for you.

[mozerd]

I suggest that you consider the MikroTik CCR2004-16G-2S+ Router … 

if you describe your venue I would then be able to make additional suggestions for Wireless Access points that would work well with the MikroTik Router …

[Joel13]

Thanks for the info! I've picked up an Asus RT AXE-7800 and got that installed this morning and it seems to be performing significantly better than my ignite router. I have 30 days on Amazon's so I'm keeping all of my options still open! 

[Joel13]

Thanks for that! I'll certainly check it out! 

[Joel13]

Just wanted to come back and mention that I have been using my new router - Asus RT-AXE7800 for just over 1 week and it's been stable. I haven't had any random disconnects in the middle of the night/early morning and so far I have also been lucky and not hit by the Asus Security Patch that also locked a bunch of routers for a couple of days. 

I also wanted to say thanks to the fellow members who dropped in and shared their thoughts. I am certainly going to be looking at other router / APs in the future as I'm trying to learn more regarding configuration, management and deployment of network - especially in a rental unit. 

Thanks again all! 

re: @-G-  @mozerd  & @RogersYasmine for the bump! 

[aelaan]

I was going to suggest the Acer Predator, but they have similar AX7800 functionality.  Wi-Fi 6E is great and the 2.5Gb port is useless as your modem/rogers device only has 1Gb connection.  I just received another email that I have now 1.5Gb.... yeah great, but they refuse to exchange my modem.  I agree that my network has been much better internally and more stable to the outside world.

[Joel13]

Since I don't have TV, I am able to connect to the ONT directly and currently, I'm getting 1.7 down and 900 up. Certainly not complaining and things have been extremely stable so far. But thanks for the suggestion and certainly something I'll keep in mind for the future.