New wireless router (adsl) advice please

Kestrel

Hi, I was wondering if anyone would be good enough to offer me their advice please as I am feeling a little overwhelmed and baffled at all the techie information relating to wireless routers and I'm not sure where else to ask...

I am with Virgin broadband (via adsl BT phone line as no cable in my rural area)
I run a small business from home so the router will get a lot of use
I would love to have a faster connection
I intend to run up 2 desktops and one netbook using the router
I am in a rural area with poor TV signal, poor mobile signal, quite slow broadband
I am in an old house (not sure how signal strength will work through thick stone walls!)
My daughter uses the computer to watch TV/iplayer
I am on a budget!

If anyone could suggest a brand/model that might fit the bill I would be ever so grateful, thanks

kwikbreaks

> I would love to have a faster connection
Your choice of router is unlikely to change anythiing greatly although moving from Virgin possibly would

> I intend to run up 2 desktops and one netbook using the router
Just about any router will support that

> I am in a rural area with poor TV signal, poor mobile signal, quite slow broadband
?

> I am in an old house (not sure how signal strength will work through thick stone walls!)
I used to have the same - it is the internal walls that matter and mine posed no real problem. Upstairs/downstairs it is the intermediate floors and they won't be significantly different from any other house. That said wireless does work better in modern houses with partition style walls.

> My daughter uses the computer to watch TV/iplayer
Better wired than wireless usually. You also need to watch download caps as video streaming eats bandwidth.

> I am on a budget!
If you are prepared to buy secondhand eBay usually has lots of wireless routers - make sure if you get an ex-ISP one that it isn't locked down to them (ie has been flashed with non-ISP firmware) - the ad should specify.

> If anyone could suggest a brand/model that might fit the bill I would be ever so grateful, thanks

In general routers with Broadcom chipsets perform better on long lines than those with TI ones - just use google to check. On that note be wary of Netgear DG834G models - the only one with a Broadcom chipset is the V4. This problem doesn't exist with the DG834GT.

Kestrel

Thanks for taking the time to reply