NETGEAR - AC1750 WiFi Router (R6400)

The R6400 was released ten years ago, when Netgear was a pretty respectable brand. It has good range and decent performance in homes with the kind of broadband Internet service that was common ten years ago. Like any other consumer purchase, you should consider how long you intend to keep your replacement router and what the annual cost of ownership over its lifetime will be. I personally never buy a new electronic device that falls short of the current standard, which is Wi-Fi 7 with multi-gig Ethernet. The feature set should look like it's too advanced for current needs because the question is what the feature set will look like for the devices you'll own in five years. The two most common questions about Wi-Fi routers on reddit are "What's the cheapest router?" and "Why is my Wi-Fi so slow?

This is what I did in my home. First and most important step is to sit down with all APs & modem, get the APs “talking” with the modem one at a time and BACKUP each with their own unique SSID as the file name, label each unit with its unique SSID after they’re verifiably/reliably talking. Next, learn to create your own Ethernet cables, grab an ethernet cable tool kit from Lowe’s or similar hardware store & a large spool of RJ 45 (something like that, can’t remember the exact name and I got like 150’ and I’m STILL making additional cable for other stuff 10 years later AFTER running all my APs), measure distance from modem to each AP (save length by installing a patch port on the wall near the location of the AP), hook everything up and you should have a diy WiFi “blanket” over the property. My home isn’t as big, the the space with which I was working is, as I wanted APs in my outer workshop, and office building, a tool shed AND my home. All of these buildings are spread over a 1acre lot and there’s nowhere on my lot that I can’t get WiFi signals. I even get them at my neighbors’.  Now, I did this using DD-WRT (router flash) on a lot of netgear R6400 (the unit being phased out JUST before the release of the fancy nighthawk). I managed to score a lot of 14 of them on eBay for like $50. That was the find of a lifetime. I DID have to flash each individual unit with a version of DD-WRT that was compatible with the model, but once I found the right flash file and it worked; the rest were smooth sailing. My property is been blanketed with reliable WiFi for 10+ years. Each AP SSID is named by location (shop, shop5, gazebo, gazebo5, etc.) DD-WRT is its own learning curve and I’m STILL not familiar with most of it, since I just want WiFi to work wherever I am and I do not have the money for “fancy” lol. My cable ISP jammed a monkey wrench into my dream network by changing my modem somehow and all those APs are no longer “talking”, I can’t even make one talk with it anymore. They tell me they didn’t change anything and they need to send a tech in order to figure it out at “no charge”, but I’m not falling for it because when they get here the cable line will be fine and have perfect signal and they’ll charge me because they say it’s network side. Yeah, ISP created network side problems. Mediacom won’t let you into THEIR modems, but they cannot stop you from going into YOURS. So I should’ve said the FIRST step is to get a docsis 3.1 modem only (unless you use their phone service too, in which case get one with voice as well. If it’s your own, you can go in, disable the router side of it and only use the phone/modem to connect with the APs. I would get a non ISP controlled modem first, because you’ll be out all that work and then stuck because THEY control the modem. 

Always, always get a seperate modem and router. As far as netgear specifically, I used one of their NightHawk AC1750 for 8 years with no problems as a standalone router. Only just deprecated it for something new because they stopped doing firmware updates for it.

For what its worth I was having annoying minor issues with my fiber services. I'm work in field ops for spectrum so I checked things out and everything is good with light. So I disconnected the wifi7 they gave me tossed it in a closet and grabbed my 6 year old Netgear AC1750 and haven't looked back.