Well, the title of the post pretty much says it all. I recently bought my first house. It's a multi-family with two apartments in it. I am going to live in the apartment upstairs and rent out the apartment downstairs. I would like to get a new Wireless-N router that is powerful enough for me to offer wireless internet to my downstairs tenants. This would make the apartment more valuable and I can include wireless internet in the rent.

Both of these apartments are pretty decent sized. I don't have the total square footage off the top of my head, but they are both three bedroom apartments.

I really don't know much about wireless networks and routers. I've been shopping around, but for every good review it seems I find just as many bad reviews of a product.

So I am hoping some Darksiders can recommend some decent, not obnoxiously expensive routers.

I want it to be Wireless-N so I can be up to date with the technology, but I also need it to be able to connect to Wireless-G devices as well. Obviously as I've mentioned above the best signal strength for my buck is the most important part.

Thanks in advance for any tips and recommendations you guys can come up with!

I think net gear that is N and is wireless if you want and it is also made by cisco i don't know if you like them or not . it is not to hard to figure out either simple user interface.

that is the home version

I use a Linksys Wireless-g router and my son's netbook works anywhere in my two story house.
It took both of us to figure out how to set it up but once set up it works reliably.

Is it for ADSL or cable? I'd probably go for one of the netgear pro models as for the range it will depend on the construction of the building your in but 802.11n will give greater range than 802.11g. 99% of N routers are backwards compatible with B and G. If you have any problems with range you can always use a signal booster or range extender and some of the netgear pro's come as a bundle with a booster included.

It would be cheaper to do some cabling with some cat6 with a line splitter/filter or cross-over adapter rather than having a wireless access point. The tenant may not have a wireless adaptor or notebook but if that doesn't bother you I would recommend a Cisco 881.

this is what i typically post when someone asks about wireless APs and routers

Raw Performance and Most Options: Buffalo/Trendnet
Easy Setup w/ Good Performance: Netgear/D-Link

i personally never recommend linksys anymore. After having many of them simply drop speed on wired LAN ports to 5mbps, i can say that i will never buy a linksys product again.

I go with aZen with the wired approach.

I've done it myself and much better. You've got wireless should it be needed but a guaranteed perfect connection if plugged into a wall outlet.

I do agree with the ^^^ above as for the wire and it is the best for being secure because a lot of people are trying to get info from people to get credit cards so if you can I would go wired

I just can't, and if you can't turn all the security on

I'm on Mazukis side Trendnet has the best performance, but requires a bit more technical know how to configure where as D-Link is much simpler setup and user interface. Same feeling with linksys shotty firmware, even shottier hardware and they are so over complicated that in order to configure 1 setting you have to change 3 others, thanks a lot Cisco . . . Personally I use a Trendnet Wireless AP (TEW-637AP) and a D-Link Gigabit Smart Switch (DGS-1248T)

i run two trendnets 1 for anyone that wants to use wireless (it runs WPA2 with a RADIUS server) and the other for wired (which is all i will ever use)

I get my internet via Cable. I wouldn't mind doing the wired option for downstairs, but first off, I don't know if I have the technical know how to pull it off. Also, there are cable connections in the walls downstairs so they could simply set up their own separate account with the ISP. I just thought I would offer mine as a shared network and cheaper option than setting up their own cable account.

It looks like I am going to look at Trendnet routers, per Maz's suggestion. I am a bandwidth hog myself so with the addition of two or more other computers to my network I need all the raw power I can get.

This Trendnet router is on sale right now. So I'm thinking this might be the one I order.


Thanks for all the information! This really helps a lot!

have you looked at the Linksys WRT6109N??

the wrt based N routers from linksys have bombed out of all the reviews and tests i've seen in terms of wireless throughput. capping below 100mbps via wlan. trendnet's best offering right now averages 240mpbs and it's mid-range at 150 or so

"there are cable connections in the walls downstairs"

Most likely for cable tv.
I think most apartment leases specify what you can do and not do. Puching holes in the walls is probably one of the can't do. Wireless is definitely easier.

And yes, Linksys has a bad reputation but my son only hooks it up when he is visiting and wants private internet access.

I run a cisco 505 and a 515 so i have not looked in to the others lately so i'm sorry I need to check up on these others I just take it for granted that others can jump in and configure a AP or router my apologize

Coax connections coming out of the wall can be used for either cable TV or internet. The main ISP here is both Cable TV and internet provider. Also, punching holes in the walls is perfectly acceptable, at least as long as I am the one doing the punching. I own the building.

I ordered this one last night. So I will let you guys know how it goes.

I have a netgear wireless-N 150 (free from comcast) works great

glad to hear it ferretboy :) let us know if you need help setting anything up, trendnet can be somewhat convoluted in it's admin page navigation