I know there are some other older topics floating around but tech moves on and I need up to date advice please!
We're about to ditch the TV part of our Virgin bundle as we pretty much only use Netflix and NowTV streaming services. Also we've got a Chromecast for the bedroom TV and will be joined by Helen's sister later in the year who will be living with us while she's studying for her uni degree. All of this means we will be relying on the 'net connection a lot more than before, and will need high speeds reaching across the whole house. At the moment the Virgin SuperHub (v1) is struggling to reach very far, and doesn't support dual-channel 2.4GHz and 5GHz modes so our collection of devices is stuck on the slower channel.
For possibly unrelated reasons we're also getting low and inconsistent speeds on our devices, very rarely approaching the 100Mb speeds we pay for. Might be an issue with the line, I'll leave this to VM to sort out.
The plan is to put the SuperHub into modem mode and connect to a dedicated cable router. This router needs to support .G, .N and .AC in dual-band mode, have strong signal range and plenty of bandwidth.
I've had a good look around already and found a load of .AC routers, but the reviews give very mixed feedback about connection stability, speed and range. So I can't tell if I'd be ok with a mid-range TP-LINK Archer or a similarly-specced Belkin or if I need to fork out for Dan's choice of the Netgear Nighthawk
Bottom line, if I need to spend £150 on a router then I will, but I'd rather spend a lot less if I'm just paying extra for features or speed that I'll probably not need.
Help and advice appreciated!