Hi there,

I hope I get an answer to this one.

Due to some “dead spots” in our current house, I ended up over the years with 3 WIFI routers to ensure proper coverage and signal strengths. That installation is now several years old; it solved the problem somehow but created three networks requiring that you connect to the strongest one manually. I possibly could have done it differently and bridged those routers somehow, but I am not a network guru.

It worked/works alright, but soon we are moving into a new house, a perfect time to change to a proper mesh system.

I recently bought the Netgear Orbi RBK752 with two satellites, assuming it should provide a strong signal in a double-story house we are moving to (2x 100 m2).

One of the routers I currently use at the old house is the NETGEAR Nighthawk R9000.
Since the R9000 wasn’t exactly cheap and works still alright, I wonder if I can make use of it, using it somehow and in a useful way together with the new Mesh system (ideally, making it somehow a mesh component rather than being now a second/additional router if possible).

However, it supports, to my knowledge, only WIFI 5 (802.11ad), probably already negating the possibility of becoming a member of the mesh system?!

I should also mention that we don’t get super high internet speeds here like in the US or Europe; it appears at the location where I will be, I am stuck with 92Mbps/4Mbps.

What are your thoughts here?

Is it even worthwhile considering including the R9000?
Could the R9000 become a mesh member (even when not supporting WIFI 6)?
Does the R9000 have maybe functionalities the RBK752 mesh system doesn’t offer (functionalities I likely never used), making it worthwhile to keep it in the system?
If it can’t be a “mesh member”, what could be the best option to use it still in the network (i.e. being located close to the back of the house, providing a WIFI signal in the garden)?
We received from the current provider a router/modem with a 4G SIM card, providing a backup when NBN (national broadband network; fibre optic to the curb/street – last run copper) has technical issues.
I would like to use that modem/router in the new place (mainly because of the 4G backup solution); I assume the best way would be to disable the WIFI and connect the router of the mesh system to it. Or should/could it be the Nighthawk router (assuming/hoping it provides any advantage in my new network)?

I envision the installation like this:

NBN connection device (a specially-installed NBN connection box, known as a Network Termination Device) -> 4G modem (WIFI disabled) -> (Nighthawk R9000?!?) -> RBK752 Router -> RBK752 Satellite -> RBK752 Satellite.

Your opinion/advice is highly appreciated.

Regards, Chris

Forum Discussion

Netgear Orbi RBK752 and Nighthawk R9000