Are you struggling to stream video or music wirelessly in your home? There are several parts involved that could be causing your pain. Your Internet provider, router or the receiving device - a TV, PC, set-top box, computer - are all points of failure.

There are other factors as well, ranging from interference from other sources of radio signals (cordless phones, garage door openers, microwave ovens) in your home or in those of neighbors; bad wiring or connections inside or outside your home; your home's physical layout, including walls, furniture and appliances.

This complexity makes troubleshooting WiFi problems difficult. But one of the best approaches you can take is to ensure you've got a decent router that's working properly.

If you have a router that's 3 years old or more, consider replacing it. Since the approval and finalization of the 802.11n WiFi standard in 2009, routers have improved dramatically. Chances are that one you buy now will run rings around the older model you're using currently.

A case in point is the latest version of the Linksys E4200, Cisco's high-end consumer router. I've been using version 1.0 for a while, and while it's been a stellar router with excellent speed and range, the company recently started selling version 2.0. I was skeptical about whether it would be a significant improvement over the first E4200, but my skepticism has dissolved.

A WiFi challenge

As I've written before, I have an, um, challenging WiFi situation. I live in a tall, narrow townhouse with a home office on the third floor. That's where my cable modem is, and thus where my router needs to be. I need to get a decent WiFi signal all the way down to the first floor, and so I'm forever searching for a router that gives me decent speed and good range throughout my house.

The E4200 v.1 did that quite well. Still, there were times when it would choke while streaming video to a device on the ground floor. It didn't happen often, but it did happen.

So far, that has not occurred with the E4200 v. 2 review unit that Cisco sent me to try. The range and signal quality are superb. I've been able to stream video and music to a notebook, iPad and iPhone throughout the house without a hitch.

On my iPhone and iPad, I was getting two WiFi bars in the connection indicator on the ground floor with version 1.0. The new one not only gives me all three bars, but I get that signal quality on my iPhone even when sitting in my car in the garage. In that case, the signal passes through two floors, through metal appliances in the kitchen above the garage, and through the steel roof of my car.

In fact, the signal in my car doesn't drop to two bars until I move to the end of my driveway, about 60 feet from the front of the house.

Three connections

The E4200 v.2 has three WiFi connections - 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz guest access. This latter allows visitors to your home to jump onto the Net, but they're not able to see other devices on your network. The guest access has its own password.

The 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz connections allow you to keep media-oriented devices separate from PCs. The 2.4-GHz band is often shared with cordless phones and other wireless devices, but there's less interference on the 5-GHz band. However, 5-GHz band doesn't have the range that 2.4 GHz does, and if your media device (a TV, set-top box, Xbox, etc.) is far from the router, or if it doesn't support a 5-GHz connection, you'll want to use 2.4 GHz.

The E4200 v.2 achieves its remarkable range with an array of six internal antennas, packed into the same stylish case as the first version of the E4200.

In theory, the E4200 has a maximum throughput of 450 megabits a second on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. This will vary depending on the conditions in your home and the distance of the receiving device from the router. Of course, this is much faster than most home Internet connections, so you'll likely only test these limits if you've got a network that supports such speeds and you're transferring files or streaming media within it.

Easy to set up

The E4200 also comes with an updated version of the Cisco Connect software, which makes setting it up a breeze. It lets you configure Guest Access, parental controls and advanced router settings. It will also create a USB key with your settings that you can use to configure a computer to easily connect to your network. If you prefer, you can use a built-in Web page in the router to tweak advanced settings.

The E4200 v.2 is not an inexpensive router, selling for about $200. Yes, that's a lot of money, but if you've got challenges in blanketing your home with a solid WiFi signal, it's worth it.