Is it hard to install a new wireless router?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is the wireless router I am considering buying to replace my 2011 wireless router.

My current router was given to me by a techie friend and he handled all of the installation and set up. Unfortunately, he lives 1500 miles away now. I use the current wireless router for my laptop, iPad, iPhone, blu ray player, and Apple TV. I’m not a gamer. My apartment is 520 sq feet so no worries about distance.

First of all, is this a decent enough router for my usage. I occasionally watch YouTube or Netflix on the iPad in my bed. Will it be an Ikea type headache installing a new router or can I comfortably do it on my own?

2

Can you SSH into your current router and see the PPP configuration? If you have no idea what that means, the answer to your initial question is probably “prohibitively hard”.

3

If there is no reason to suspect the original configuration was at all tricky, no problem.

These things are sold as mass market devices to idiots. It shouldn’t be at all hard to set one up.

Choose a really good password, okay?

(In fact, one company has dumbed down the interface so much it is pretty much useless for us tweak-everything types.)

4

Assuming you never setup a router, here are the basic steps:

  1. Turn off your old router.
  2. Turn on your new router.
  3. Setup your router. The steps will be specific to that particular router. Follow the instructions for how to connect. Typically you will use a computer to connect to that router’s wifi. The instructions will typically tell you to connect to an address like http://192.168.0.1 or something.
  4. After connecting to that address, you’ll be in web page which will guide you through the router’s setup
  5. Give your router a wifi name and wifi password. You should make these the same as your current router. This way all your devices will connect as normal.
  6. Give your router an admin password. This should NOT be the same as the wifi password. The admin password is what you’ll use to log back into the setup webpage for the router. If you trust the router’s location, write the admin password down on a sticker and put it on the router.

The router might need to reset, but then it should be ready. Existing devices might need to be rebooted so they can get a new address from the new router. But that’s pretty much it.

5

What kind of internet connection do you have? As I recall, setting up a wifi router with a DSL modem was a lot more work than with a cable modem.

6

I have a cable modem and I have a password that’s almost impossible to crack.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

7

Ugh, things like SSH and PPP means that I’ll need an expert.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

8

That advice is extremely unlikely to apply to you. Very, very unlikely.

Good grief, I don’t do PPP ever and ssh only for highly modded routers. And I’m as geeky about this as you can get.

Don’t worry about it for now.

Just do a normal average person install. It should be fine.

You gotta buy a new router anyway. Try it. If it doesn’t work put the old one back and then get help.

9

You’ll be fine. Follow the instructions that come with the router.

10

Don’t get that router to replace an old one though - if you live in an apartment, you definitely want a Wireless AC router, and you want to connect everything you can to the 5ghz side to reduce interference from other apartments. Wireless N is 2.4ghz only and is an older standard.

11

Why would you SSH into a modern home router or manually do anything with PPP configuration? That just sounds like you’re trying to appear smart and intimidate the OP by dropping technical terms into the conversation. But routers like the OP uses have a default configuration that will work with a typical internet connection out of the box, and can be quickly configured from a web browser once you attach a system to it. Using ssh to go into a router, and manually setting anything to do with PPP is the sort of thing you do for high end routers in a large, complex network, it doesn’t make sense in the OP’s situation.

Seriously OP, if you can operate a web browser and follow simple directions you can set up a modern router like the one you linked on a home network. Either plug an ethernet cable into the router or connect to the default wifi (details will be on a sticker or in the documentation. Run a browser to change the router settings, then set your wifi name (ssid) and password and change the administrator password of the router so a random person can’t mess with it. It’s easiest if you give the network the same name as your old one so that you don’t have to put the new name/pass on devices.

12

Do you have routers that you’d suggest, preferably available on amazon.The one I linked to earlier had been recommended on some list and I saved it to my wish list.

13

There are a lot of options.

I am guessing that you already have a cable/dsl modem that does not have the wireless built in that you will attach to the router to have wireless.

This is the model that I purchased to attach to my cable modem.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008HO9DK4/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It is pretty easy to set up. It is a bit pricier than the one you had shown at the top, but the difference is it handles all the different wireless specs, not just the N type that the one you posted the link to.

Any AC router from any of the bigger companies should be fine. Just look at reviews and determine what you think would work best for you.

14

I generally like the Asus routers myself, I usually buy ones a little higher end than this one, but should be good for an apartment and non-expert user:
ASUS RT-ACRH13