Cisco Router for homelab/Learning to be CCNA certified.

[Mamir5]

Not sure what to get. I have an Arris Cable Modem that does up to 2.5g. yes I know what i'm asking for is overkill. Yes I know its noisy, yes I know they get hot. I don't care. I don't care what your opinion is about them, I don't care. I don't care!

Yes I know they're expensive. Yes i know packetracer exists. I prefer to be hands on. I'm not looking for alternatives, I'm not looking for the latest l337 open source alternative.

I have a house with about 8 roomates in total. Alot of us game and alot of us have girlfriends and regular ol friends who come over to hangout. So there is up to 20 people here at once and they all have devices. Everyone games, streams, downloads, facetimes, I intend to have a cisco router, a decent switch and ubiquiti aps.

What cisco router/hardware do I need to hook up directly to my modem to then distribute via switches and aps?

Thank you for your patience.

[balaji.bandi]

its all depends on Your Budget.

Cisco Gear is not that easy cost you expecting to come as market priced.

Why do you need a router ? 

Are you looking to replace existing ISP router with Cisco Router - then you need to look is the Local ISP support options - what Modem connection you have DSL / VDSL / FTTH ?

Look at the small Business switches (depends on port requirement)

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/small-business/networking/switches.html

If you are looking Ethernet connection and Wifi (then Look Meraki - they have both switching and AP - can manage in Cloud)

Note  : If you looking to Practice CCNA Labs , then you need to Buy some OLD Refurbished in the market - Cisco8XX Router or 9XX Router - cisco 3750/3850 - Any AP which can act as Controller and AP - example Cisco AP 2800/3800.

You need to do some ground work before you buy them and understand end of life equipment when you buy them to do Labs.

[DanielP211]

Hello,

If you want it just for labing I would go with so used equipment of ebay. For routers: C8XX, C11XX, C39XX, whatever you can get the cheapest. For AP's I would do the same, you can get 181X AP's and run ME on them. If you want new state of the art equipment C8200, C8300 it will cost you upwards a few thousand dollars.

BR

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Is your cable's 2.5g both up and down?

Should your router support full cable bandwidth?

Also the I337, that's for cellular?  If so, what do you want the router to do for/with it.