Was looking around for a modem/router for a friend. went to Office works website. Saw the Tp-Link D7, was $179 when I searched for it 10 minutes ago, however if you check now its $128. Its a full $1 cheaper than the lower D2 model! Its cheapest on Staticice. Not sure if its a pricing error. Its the cheapest on OzB I believe.
D2 - http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/tp-link-ac7… $129
D7 - http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/tp-link-ac1… $128
It's about all you're worth :)
Yo momma din't
Heh.
You're probably right.
He is right
Yup, And I got it for $121 last week from officeworks after price matching/beating EB Games. Does anyone having problems with the 5 Ghz band ? The 5 GHz band is too slow for me. Wondering if it need a firmware upgrade ? Has anyone experiencing similar problem ?
Nope not really. I got the d5 model. Had it for a year now.
What are u testing? Internet or local network? 5ghZ (AC) isn't as good through obstacles as N on 2.4. Ull find the signal is much weaker if the router is in another room and therefore experience poorer performance. Best to invest in extender to amplify the signal.
I have an Amazon Fire TV Stick, which connects to this router on the 5Ghz band. The stick is like 4 meters away from the router in the same room. Earlier it was working fine with my old TP-Link router on 2.4 Ghz band. This is so annoying. There is so much video lag now.
Is the fire TV stick even supported by 5Gz? I'm not sure Ive never used one.
That being said just setup/use it on 2.4ghz-N band. AC aint gonna give you better speed anyways considering adsl2+ (assuming ur not on NBN) speeds are 20mbps and N goes up to 300-450mbps.
@Gavman: if I have to switch back to 2.4 GHz band, I would rather return the D7, and switch back to my old TP-link router. What is the benifit of buying a dual-band router when I can't use/benifit from the 5Ghz band ? And, yes, Fire TV stick support dual bands. I basically bought it for Fire TV stick to enjoy HD content from Netflix and Hulu and reduce the congestion on my 2.4 GHz band. But the plan doesn't seems to be working.
good question. Y upgrade in the first place for no benefit or performance. the d7 can jangle congestion anyway by using auto feature. It will choose the best frequency. Again I'm not sure 5ghz is the root solution. U can try getting another type of router but probably have same problem. Perhaps the tv stick is a dud.
@Gavman: "Y upgrade in the first place". To get the benifits of 5Ghz band speed and reduce congestion on 2.4 GHz band. Fire stick is absolutely fine.
As I said, Your streaming internet content (Netflix). AdSl Internet bandwidth is slow anyways. Ac wireless doesn't just make ur internet fast all of a sudden. Get over the misconception.
Have had one for almost a year, I find that the 5ghz doesn't like brick walls. 5ghz is not designed to go through walls as well as 2.4ghz.
The firmware upgrade is good though. Completely updates the web interface and makes it works with the phone app.
That's right but the price will go up again.
still wishing for D9 to come on sale!
D9 is the bomb!!
Since having bought it we haven't had a single drop out or drama :)
My d9 has been very solid
Nice upgrade form my old billion.
Me too! upgraded from a Billion 7800N to a D9 last year and has been rock solid. Just a shame I'm so far from the exchange and am lucky to get 500kbps.
Sounds like I need to few things a d9 too then, billion at mums house needs a reset every fortnight or so or the net and more importantly VoIP goes out. Does it have built in VoIP?
No VoIP but my internet is so slow that I wouldn't trust it to work well anyway.
It is a lot more reliable that the Billion, but I don't feel like the wireless range is that much better. I might look at upgrading the antennas at some stage as the unit lives on the ground floor and most of the wireless devices are on the first floor. The interface is also pretty easy FWIW.
@ebosh: if you have a phone extension is stairs I would try moving the unit up and letting downstairs connect via wireless if possible before shelling money out
Point taken. The issue is that most of the IT gear is located downstairs including the main PC, media server and printer. But now that I think of it, I could probably get a switch for the downstairs gear and move the D9 upstairs and connect the downstairs stuff via the ethernet point in the wall…
Thanks for making me think!
@ebosh: I wired up upstairs in my mum's place but due to the brick walls I never bothered with downstairs, a switch should do you fine if you have at least one port, and you might find that the wireless works better from upstairs to down than the other way around also, then you could try better antennas as some have mentioned also
Gets tricky to find PCI cards that at the high speeds, my asus PCE-AC68 still doesn't have proper windows 10 drivers and does max 300mbit ….. lost of fast modems and routers around, not so many cards that use them with windows 10. Seems it's a broadloom not writing driver issue.
Geez for 3 bucks rather get it from office works and have it in 15 minutes and return it anytime if it hand any issues
Its the cheapest on OzB I believe
Was just pointing out that this was incorrect.
Technically with the price beat $121 last week that wasn't the cheapest anyway
I bought this one on boxing day and I'm not loving it. My big pond gateway has better wifi coverage and is in a worse location ( it sits on the floor behind a wooden filing cabinet) than I put this one. Any recommendations for antennas?
I have similar issues, I have to continually flick between 2.4 and 5Mhz wifi because one or the other seems to drop out.
Bought this and having the exact same issue. I'm with Telstra and i noticed it on my apple devices. They were coming up with Telstra addresses rather than ones that start with 192.168.x.x. Changing the channels back to Auto and forgetting the network on the devices and reconnecting has worked thus far. Hope this helps
Thanks for ur input. I'm also with Telstra and the issues are with apples devices so I'll test your solutions and see if they fix it for me also.
Thanks OP! Will get one as an upgrade to existing Billion 7800N.
I have the same modem router and cannot fault it, so am not looking to upgrade.
But I'm interested to see how you go and what additional features you'll make use of?
Looks like there's no OpenWRT build for this model.
Modem/routers dont normally get WRT builds do they? Thats why I buy routers only, and bridge them to any old modem..
Currently running latest (Jan 2016) build of DD-WRT on my Netgear R7000 router, and installed YAMon2 bandwidth monitor to monitor/graph the hourly/daily/monthly traffic of each of the 22+ network devices at home.
Very happy with how it (router, and YAMon) is working.. even tho its free, I donated $10 to the creator (of the script, not God) for his efforts.
The router is even blocking all/most adverts to all the devices in the house - so when I browse News.com.au etc I dont get all those annoying popup and banner ads etc. Saves having to install adblocker plugins on every browser/device.
TP-Link C7 or C9 (router only models) apparently work well with WRT.
There's actually some experimental support for a few modems now in OpenWRT.
I was more mentioning it in case people got mixed up with router only models that as you mention are very popular with OpenWRT.
got it for $122 on Sunday - price match with EBgames
found that it doesn't support (even with the latest firmware) my portable WB drive and 2+ GB external powered HDDs
Assume you mean TB.
Most (if not all) routers wont support anything over 2TB.
My 4tb Seagate portable drive is working pretty well through the USB port on the router.
No mention of the 2TB limit in the FAQ or user guides.
It's discussed briefly here: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2389018.
GPT/ other partitions?
not sure but i have this one
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/computers-tablets/all-computers--t…
plugged directly into the usb port and it started working instantly. it did not require any set up. i am on the new router firmware though.
bought one before Christmas unfortunately before it was on sale and compared to my old Netgear it's is night and day for me at least, better coverage and speed throughout the house
I bought a D7 from OW last year when EB had them on sale. Installed the latest firmware and I love it. The ADSL connection is rock solid and I never have an issue with the 5GHz band. My D7 is the only access point in range on 5GHz so that helps I suppose. Even if the signal is a bit low at the other end of the house, it still outperforms the congested 2.4GHz around me.
Remember to update the firmware, for massive improvements in the interface. The TP-link Tether app is also really handy for blocking connected devices and for parental controls.
Any IT pros know if this is the "best" Wireless Router to get, or should I get an equivalent Asus?
I do not need a Modem or custom firmware, and I just want a strong wireless signal and a stable router that doesn't need rebooting
Thank you in advance!
This is the D7 not the C7
He asked whether D7 is the "best wireless router", with no modem. According to that article, it's not. C7 is.
Is this the 'best' wireless router to get? Almost certainly not.
Is it good and worth the money? Absolutely.
Would an 'IT Pro' get it one? Depends on budget. Personally I'd pony up a bit more money and get a Ubiquiti router and AP but that's not as 'consumer friendly'. It is more 'IT Pro' though.
Thank you. I really appreciate your help.
I bought one at lunch time …
I've had a HEAP of routers trying to get a stable network built in my old rental place.
I decided to splash out and bought a Netgear R7000 when they first came out, best purchase I ever made as far as networking gear goes, thing is absolutely rock solid and the wireless range is awesome.
Cons are:
You have to upgrade the antennas mine cost me $9 off ebay ($3 each) I now have flawless 2.4 and 5g even through 2 brick walls.
The media server is garbage in latest firmware. My tv/xbmc will play 1 episode then fail to play the next till the router is restarted. QoS is a bit hit and miss my netgear 3700 was better for voip.
Over all i love it.
Building a raspberry pi2 transcoding plex server and I have used a few tricks to fix the voip quality. sync speed is a lot better than my 3700.
can you please send me the link to the antennas you bought. Thanks
I'm guessing something like this… http://www.ebay.com.au/ulk/itm/281653351157
But it's only 2.4g. Not sure where u find both frequencies
Mine are 39cm long without ridges. My seller doesnt have them atm. The are advertised as 9/10/13/16db but i suspect closer to 7db. See previous D9 post for pic and more info. Works just as well with 5G.
could you please share the model number or name of the product so we can try to find it from another seller? my wifi signal is seriously worse than my old $60 linksys router
Were the ones you got both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz (AC) or just 2.4-2.5? Ones on ebay now seems to only be 2.4 or at least that's what the say.
@Gavman:
It's near impossible to know if they are the same no markings or branding or even packaging, I did buy a set with ridges around the same size and they were worst that the originals.
As close as I can tell these I am 95% sure are the same.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/3-9dBi-2-4G-5G-Dual-Band-RP-SMA-W…
There are other factors in play here, you may have a neighbour using the same channel, electrical wiring can also shield. The fact I get hidef on my chromecast in my bedroom makes me happy.
I bought D7 .. Can I fit these antennas in the that ?
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/3-9dBi-2-4G-5G-Dual-Band-RP-SMA-W…
Thanks. Just ones I saw didn't support 5ghz which would defeat the purpose. I'm not keen to buy anyways.. the original antennas with my router are good enough for my 2 bedroom apartment.
Likewise, any advice on good antennas? I bought a price matched D7 last week and although I'm loving the web interface and amount of control I have over the network, it has worse wireless coverage compared to my old and cheap D-Link router. For some reason it is only affecting my desktop using a D-Link wireless adapter, but not any of my other devices including my laptop, iPad and iPhone (regardless of frequency band).
Could be better to get a wifi extender over antennas.
In my case i tried that, various locations using a different ssid i managed to get 4 bars but transfer speeds maxed out < 1Mbs and chromecast choked on anything but the lowest bitrate. I assumed it was the antennas in these repeate,they are the on circuit board kind 1db at best
Probably will work too, but they're more expensive + knowing my old cheap router had no coverage issues means it shouldn't be too difficult to remedy.
Just bought one, but on the confirmation page it said 'Back ordered: 1, Dispatched in 14-18 business days' and now I can't find the order in the 'My Orders' section under My Account. I chose Click and Collect… Anyone else have this? I want to change it to door to door delivery if it will take that long to get it to my store…
EDIT: Looks like this is not in stock in all of NSW now and is on Backorder….
Hmm, just got an SMS saying that the modem is ready to be picked up… I guess their systems aren't linked properly for C&C but it works out well for me (hopefully) :-)
I'm looking at a decent range easy-to-use reliable router, will have NBN fibre to the premesis. Thinking of going out and buying this one even though it has a modem since the price looks so good, any opinions?
I'm also looking for a router with a decent range - Would this be recommended for the price even though it has unneeded modem functionality?
If you're not on ADSL you can disable the modem function and use an ethernet port for the router instead, so it works well as a general
wireless router. This is a huge plus for me.
I've had one of these since June last year, rock solid, haven't gone to the very latest firmware yet. Both 2.4ghz and 5ghz are excellent.
Need to get new antennas on my tp-link pci-e desktop card. Behind a big metal box = bad coverage on 5ghz :)
I went out and bought one today, couldn't find anything comparable at the same price! (even without the modem funct). This'll also save me if I move house, can use it with an ADSL2+ connection as well.
Great modem/router for the price. I've had it for over a year, nil problems, and I usually have 15+ wifi devices on my network (both 2.4 and 5ghz bands used). I did buy different antennas as some people advise, however didn't notice any improvement (and generally don't have any connection issues anyway). The firmware upgrade is a must though - much better layout.
could you please share which antennas you bought? either name of the product or a link to it would be really helpful
Have one of these, WiFi is crap no coverage and the 5ghz keeps disappearing requiring a restart of the modem. The web is littered with reports of this problem yet tplink won't fix it.
I'm on one before latest firmware, 5ghz is good for me?
Mine was good for the first 6 months but than developed the fault. Currently on latest firmware.
Maybe the fix is the version 1.1 Hardware it has a larger ROM
I had a issue with 2.4 dropping out but that was due to two or more devices torrenting at the same time on wifi. I reduced the numer of connections in our bt clients issue hasn't come back since.
My old netgear nb9wmaxx has been pretty crappy lately. About time I got a new modem.
There is one D7 on Ebay, Title Tp-Link Archer D7 Ac1750
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Tp-Link-Archer-D7-Ac1750-/2721002…
Quite cheap at the moment …
Does this work with TPG FTTB ? (Fibre to the building) The original Huawei is quite unstable
Thanks! I was looking to buy one last week.. lucky I held off. Will go pick one up on the way home.
How does this compare to iiNet's Bob Lite?
Great route
Has great VPN connection
Fast to load, fast to reboot.
Good allrounder
Does anyone know how this compares with the Telstra Gateway Max? Is this worth getting?
Thanks for the post!
Picked up the last one in-store at OfficeWorks Alexandira just now.
Great price!
They must have brought more out. I have got the second last one at Alexandria as of 6pm.
Thanks, good post, one left at Morley, WA.
Thanks op. Just in time for my new ADSL connection. Got 1 at OfficeWorks Kew East, VIC. There are so many left in store ;)
Well nobody says no to a dollar, right?