Wifi extenders

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Aug 18, 2009
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Ohio
Earlier in the year, we cut the cable and changed internet providers.
We transitioned to streaming as well.
We have a good signal on the first floor including the front of the house, furthest from the router.
I discovered when I installed a new TV in our exercise room downstairs (in the front of the house), not so much.
Therefore, we need to do something to improve the signal downstairs.
Thus, the interest in Wifi extenders.
Looking at recommendations for extenders, and tips on placement (such as front of house, in stairwell, etc.)
Thanks.
 
I can’t really connect the one thing that you did to the other…. Did your old isp provide a router that covered further? Or was the change in isp not really related, the status quo just changed when you installed the tv in a new spot That maybe used to have a cable drop? What router are you running now?

Ive been happy with the ASUS routers running Merlin wrt. At home I have one unit and since our house has multiple,floors, not spread out, it works fine. I have an extender to reach my backyard, and two long distance 2.4 GHz antennas to reach an Aruba system in a different garage building a few hundred feet away. In another home that is single story and spread out, I have two (AX-58/AX-56) doing mesh with a power line ethernet backhaul. That’s essentially what I’d be looking for in your case. There are a variety Of options out there. Aruba instant on gets good marks by some, so you might look into using one or more of them too…

at one property I use an old linksys N extender with the SSID set up the same. It works….

But for home I’d look at mesh with powerline Ethernet backhaul personally…

maybe an ax-86 as the main router (on sale) and an ax-58 as the mesh…


That ax-86 model seems currently on sale.

Then cheap power line adapters, maybe someone has a recommendation for some that are more cyber secure and don’t send all your data to someone else….
 
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I've been happy with this for the past couple of months:


I have one in my living room, connected via Ethernet to my residential gateway. I have a second upstairs that uses a wireless backhaul.
I operate mine in AP mode as I still use the RG as the DHCP server.
I may get a 3rd and turn off the radio on the RG and go solely with the DECO mesh.
I only use the WiFi on the RG as my guest network as it puts that in a different subnet.
 
Without knowing anything about your setup, I'd say just go ahead and get a decent mesh setup, they tend to work better than traditional routers with extenders.

Please let me know if you want any recommendations.
 
I've been happy with this for the past couple of months:


I have one in my living room, connected via Ethernet to my residential gateway. I have a second upstairs that uses a wireless backhaul.
I operate mine in AP mode as I still use the RG as the DHCP server.
I may get a 3rd and turn off the radio on the RG and go solely with the DECO mesh.
I only use the WiFi on the RG as my guest network as it puts that in a different subnet.
This is what I'm using. Highly recommended, by me at least. Great signal everywhere and has eliminated buffering.
 
I can’t really connect the one thing that you did to the other…. Did your old isp provide a router that covered further? Or was the change in isp not really related, the status quo just changed when you installed the tv in a new spot That maybe used to have a cable drop? What router are you running now?

We had an Arris cable modem, rented from our previous vendor.
We switched to Spectrum. Have been running their modem, paired up with a Motorola AC 2600 Router.
Coverage upstairs has been improved over the previous setup.
However, downstairs has declined somewhat.
Yes, the old CRT TV had a cable drop. Replaced set to stream.
Getting hit or miss streaming performance with the new setup.
 
We had an Arris cable modem, rented from our previous vendor.
We switched to Spectrum. Have been running their modem, paired up with a Motorola AC 2600 Router.
Coverage upstairs has been improved over the previous setup.
However, downstairs has declined somewhat.
Yes, the old CRT TV had a cable drop. Replaced set to stream.
Getting hit or miss streaming performance with the new setup.
So are you looking to replace the Motorola ac router to a newer ax router? I see you had another thread about routers from a few months back that never had an outcome…

I stand by the two asus ax setup personally… then the firmware handles everything…
 
So are you looking to replace the Motorola ac router to a newer ax router? I see you had another thread about routers from a few months back that never had an outcome…

The outcome was we went with the Motorola, which was one of the recommendations made in the thread.
Would prefer to augment what we have, but if not possible, guess we look at starting from scratch.
 
Can the Spectrum box transmit a wifi signal (acting as an Access Point, or AP)? If it does, you can use the Motorola as a second AP moved closer to the TV by linking them with a long Ethernet cable. Most houses can be covered by one AP if it is centrally located.

Ethernet over power lines may be hit or miss but when it works it is quite reliable. That would be worth trying if the TV has an Ethernet port.
 
Extenders cut your bandwidth in half (literally).

Best option is to hardwire in new access points, then separate them out by channel (possibly reducing signal output where needed) so that they're not all screaming on the same frequency and causing interference and collisions. For 2.4ghz, only use channels 1, 6, and 11, and again, if possible don't put two devices with "channel 1" where they can "see" each other etc.

Ubiquiti is not cheap but is generally the way to go. I won't use anything other than their UniFi products as I prefer the single managed controller, but that's probably overkill for a home setup. They do have home owner grade stuff too, but I have no experience with it.
 
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The outcome was we went with the Motorola, which was one of the recommendations made in the thread.
Would prefer to augment what we have, but if not possible, guess we look at starting from scratch.
Can you hardwire the TV? Do you really want anything else?

I hardwired our main tv because it’s in the same room as the router and I could run the cable through the basement out of sight. If that’s all you really need, just do a powerline Ethernet from the router to an outlet near the tv, and hardwire it.
 
Can you hardwire the TV? Do you really want anything else?

Unfortunately, no.
TV is in basement in front of house.
Router is in the back of the house.
Only other option (and I don't know if it is even possible) would be to "Piggyback" a second router off the primary.
With about a 15' ethernet cord, I could run it underneath the family room floor (crawlspace) and get it to the back wall of the basement.
That would put the second router about 20' away from the TV.
 
Extenders cut your bandwidth in half (literally).

Best option is to hardwire in new access points, then separate them out by channel (possibly reducing signal output where needed) so that they're not all screaming on the same frequency and causing interference and collisions. For 2.4ghz, only use channels 1, 6, and 11, and again, if possible don't put two devices with "channel 1" where they can "see" each other etc.

Ubiquiti is not cheap but is generally the way to go. I won't use anything other than their UniFi products as I prefer the single managed controller, but that's probably overkill for a home setup. They do have home owner grade stuff too, but I have no experience with it.
This.

Extenders stink. I put one in my house because the furthest area of my basement (from the upstairs main router) was a dead zone, as was my attached garage. The extender worked enough to be functional. I get about 25% of the bandwidth.

When able to connect to the main router, I average around 150-250mbps throughput. When connected to the extender (which was placed approx halfway from main router to the area it has to serve), it tops out at 50mbps which greater latency.

I just set up a Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi-6 system at work, and they are the bees' knees. Centrally managed, tons of info at your fingertips, and if you work at it a bit, you can set them so the handoff from AP to AP is nearly seamless. They suffer the same throughput reduction if you try to use one as a mesh (no ethernet backhaul) but it's not as bad as your cheap home extenders.
 
We found a similar coverage issue when we put a Peloton in the basement - without over-explaining the layout of our system, the main router had to be placed on the top (of three) floors at one extreme end of the house. Our ISP got us into a mesh system that replaced the router and added a secondary antenna which is connected to the router via the unused cable TV run from the router to the basement. Works like a charm.
 
Unfortunately, no.
TV is in basement in front of house.
Router is in the back of the house.
Only other option (and I don't know if it is even possible) would be to "Piggyback" a second router off the primary.
With about a 15' ethernet cord, I could run it underneath the family room floor (crawlspace) and get it to the back wall of the basement.
That would put the second router about 20' away from the TV.
I think you missed my point. Does the tv have an Ethernet jack? Because I’d consider just doing an Ethernet power line adapter, which makes your home wiring into Ethernet, in order to just get data to one tv. Depends on if having WiFi in there is a nice to have or must have. But it’s an option regardless, and you’ll want thst for a mesh system anyway.
 
Earlier in the year, we cut the cable and changed internet providers.
We transitioned to streaming as well.
We have a good signal on the first floor including the front of the house, furthest from the router.
I discovered when I installed a new TV in our exercise room downstairs (in the front of the house), not so much.
Therefore, we need to do something to improve the signal downstairs.
Thus, the interest in Wifi extenders.
Looking at recommendations for extenders, and tips on placement (such as front of house, in stairwell, etc.)
Thanks.
Had a similar situation when we moved into our place 2 years ago. Got a moca adapter that carries the internet signal over existing cable. It's not quite as fast as a direct ethernet connection but it's faster and more stable than any extender would be.
Works great and is rock solid.
Check this out! https://a.co/d/bTbO9az
 
I think you missed my point. Does the tv have an Ethernet jack? Because I’d consider just doing an Ethernet power line adapter, which makes your home wiring into Ethernet, in order to just get data to one tv. Depends on if having WiFi in there is a nice to have or must have. But it’s an option regardless, and you’ll want thst for a mesh system anyway.

Understand now.
Yes it does.
 
Had a similar situation when we moved into our place 2 years ago. Got a moca adapter that carries the internet signal over existing cable. It's not quite as fast as a direct ethernet connection but it's faster and more stable than any extender would be.
Works great and is rock solid.
Check this out! https://a.co/d/bTbO9az

Very helpful. Thanks.
 
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