What do I look for in a router to assure I can cover my whole house with wi-fi? Presently, I do not believe an antenna can be attached to my model to boost its transmitting area. Should I look for a certain wattage rating, or what?
Note to Admin: My intention was to post a factual question on routers, but I see it could become a IMHO type of thread. Please bump to IMHO.
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As you wish…
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How big is your house?
I like the Asus RT-N66U/RTAC66-U for straight out of the box good performance. But getting whole house coverage, as long as you steer clear of some of the low end routers, is more about placement, house size, and what your house is made of. Replaceable antennas can be great if you need a big increase in directional signal (say you want to link two wireless routers in two different houses, or a house and an outside garage say, permanently), but they do basically nothing for you as far as just making it reach more of the house in all directions. Running wire so the router is mounted high in a central room of the house is generally going to do much more for you than anything else.
How big is the house? You may be better served with two access points. My Uverse gateway is upstairs, and downstairs, I have an Apple Airport in bridge (repeater) mode,which uses the same network name and password, so we can freely roam the house and always have a good signal.
My Linksys router on one end of my house basically covers the 2200 sq ft footprint. As mentioned above, with two stories it might be good to use a repeater. Another (more costly) option is the Linksys models with home wiring networking capabilities. These extend your network using the household wiring, linking together multiple access points. I helped a friend install a set up like this on a large (4000+ sq ft) old brick house with some solid brick/block walls that blocked signals.
Also, there are fre tools like Inssider for Windows that can show you signal strength of your wireless. This can help you determine if more than one AP is needed for good coverage.
Yes, look at repeaters rather than boosters. Note that the repeaters are wired to the main router.
Sorry it took me so long to respond. The house is 2,280 sq ft. We bought a Linksys N600 to improve coverage, but we have not opened the box yet in case it should be returned. The boxes never show a rating by anything meaningful like wattage or sq ft. Why not?
Presently, we have a smaller Linksys (Model WRT54G2 V1) router that weakly touches upstairs and across the house. I guess I have nowhere to go but up with a N600, right?
I know nothing is guaranteed, but can anyone share their experience with a N600 model? If so, what size is your house? And, can you catch a signal upstairs (without a repeater/booster)?
Last, what is the difference between a repeater or booster? In general, a repeater receives a signal on one frequency and transmits at another frequency. Isn’t a booster the same thing?
I bought an expensive Cisco e4200 router that died 3x all just after the warranty expired. Finally I switched to a WD N750. The it guy I got it com said its good but that Netgear make the best ones.
I would put in a run of cat5e or cat6 Ethernet cable in the most convenient place, connecting two relatively remote parts of your house. That then gives you the ability to plug in a router at both points (one configured as a wireless access point). It also means that you have wired Ethernet closer to more parts of your house.
Gigabit Ethernet cable is much better for many situations, such as transferring huge video files from your desktop computer to a NAS such as a Drobo.
Even if that isn’t your bag, it still is quite handy to have multiple routers running. Just be careful to set one up as a proper router and make the others be wireless access points only.
Where did you buy it from? Most places are fine with an opened return, as long as you have the receipt. I did that at Best Buy; bought one to make sure it was actually my old router that was causing problems. Didn’t bother returning it as it was good enough.
Ethernet is always the way to go, although I understand it’s not always feasible. Many router boxes have a “rating” system for what size house it works for, compared to their other models, although note to look at an independent source as the ratings are mostly relative to their other models. Dual band is common nowadays and many routers have multiple antennae.
I am not an expert at routers but they are not like stereo amps where more wattage means bigger signal. I have a similar problem that I haven’t solved yet. WiFi access points/routers never give specs about range. I think this is because there are too many variables to predict the effect range for a given situation. Newer dual-band routers will offer great range (2.4 and 5 GHz). Interestingly, not even the reviewsseem to directly evaluate range.
I was trying to help my mother get a signal in a far corner office. They have an ISP-provided combo modem/router. I ended up trying to use something…a repeater? It was supposed to connect with the main wifi signal and output a 2nd wifi signal.
I coudlnt get it to work. 
Here’s what I do…I find the router with the best combination of numbers of reviews and the best ratings. That’s it.
Which led me to buy this one for my house.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190