Wireless Networking → This might be too general a question, but...

When shopping for Gigabit wireless routers, what features and technologies should one look for on a lower end model? It there a tutorial on wireless router features?

The question should really be the other way round.

What do you need to accomplish with your internet connection. What is the current speed of your ISP and the projected speed 3-5 years down the line. (probably a reasonable lifespan for a router). How many devices (wired and wifi) will you be supporting in your home, including silly phones. How much remote access will you want to home from away for example? Will you have home servers that outside users will tap into?

Do you like to tinker with hardware, play with command line programming or prefer plugNplay type IT devices.

Do you have a central location for all house wiring?
D0 you have now or suspect will require dual WAN (use two providers)?

Articulating your requirements as fully as possible will lead to valuable advice from those here. Simply stating whats a good router is a waste of time.

If you've no idea what you're after (as [user-Anav] mentions) or no idea for what featureset
to look for, I'd start over at smallnetbuilder.com.

My 00000010bits

Regards

First do you actually need a router with gigabit WAN and or LAN ports(you can use a five or more port gigabit switch with any router)? If you want IPv6 today and your ISP doesn’t offer native IPv6 you need a router that supports 6rd or 6in4 tunnels (and register for a Hurricane Electric tunnel account). In any case the router should at a minimum support native IPv6. Do you want to connect a USB drive and have it show up as a Windows (Samba) share? Do you want a guest wireless with different SSID and security than your primary wireless? Do you want dual band wireless? Do you need to use WDS to extend the wireless range?

Ok, thanks to all of you and your questions.

My ISP provides, currently 100Mbps down and about 12Mbps up. I use wireless for cell phone, possibly a future tablet (sis said I might get one for my birthday), laptop (that is very fussy with wireless routers for some reason), and desktop using wireless, so maybe 2 or 3 devices simultaneously, but normally I'm by myself here (in emergencies my neighbor might need to use my access or I their's if either of our's goes down since we're both going to school). I'd like decent range but don't need outrageous range. I DO tinker with hardware, but don't have the knowledge yet, I did put DD-WRT on my linksys. Yes, central location. Won't need dual WAN. Having a guest network access would be nice. I need gigabit because my ISP provides 100+ Mbps down currently (need to upgrade my EoP system too, that would have to wait though, but I have computer in central wiring spot AND in bedroom. I want IPV6 support because I think Comcast is already supporting it? I'm interested in the tunneling thing, tell me more! I would like a usb port that I could hook up a USB hub to so that printer and external drive could be run, eventually. I am not familiar with WDS. I don't know if I need dual band, but I am hoping, next year, to get a Samsung S5 phone and may get an AC supported computer in the future (next couple of years). Right now, N is adequate.

Depending on what Comcast offers at your location you may want/need to use a tunnel. You do need to make sure the router supports what Comcast supplies.

What is tunneling, is it a security measure?

Tunneling allows you to send IPv6 packets embedded in IPv4 packets to a server that removes the IPv4 wrapper and forwards the native IPv6 packet. The server also receives the IPv6 response and sends it to you via the tunnel.

»ipv6.he.net
»tunnelbroker.net
Op wont see this as I am on ignore. But for others that dont know Hurricane Electric has free tunneling IPv6 for private use and learning. Plus as far as learning tons of free stuff on IPv6 to help.
Free certification:
»ipv6.he.net/certification/
So even if already have IPv6 though your ISP the Hurricane Electric certification has useful info even if you do not need their free tunnel.

My suggestion is to get a Netgear R6300. It will handle your ISP 100Mbps/12Mbps very nicely plus a whole lot of other stuff. And if you have any smart devices like iPhones, Android, Windows mobile, etc. the R6300 will handle the load [up to 15 devices] with ease. If you decide to get the R6300 just make sure that your ISP provided device is not a gateway -- if it is a gateway you will need to put the gateway in bridge mode [where it operates as a dedicated Cable Modem] to have the R6300 work effectively.

How much are you willing to spend? I don’t think you are going to find a low end router that meets all of your requirements.