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Forum Discussion
Almost no download speed on WN3000RP range extender
My setup at home has a Comcast cable modem (Arris TG862G -- Internet speed is up to 50 Mbps) at one end of the house, and need to extend the range to the other end (approx. 70 feet), as the signal is...
Wi-Fi is a tricky beast. We're dealing with radio transmissions, so there are a lot of factors that can conspire to disrupt Wi-Fi. There is radio interference from baby monitors, cordless telephones, microwave ovens, Bluetooth devices, etc. You can have neighboring networks that can congest your channel. Your devices must be able to transmit with enough signal strength to be reliably received at the other end. Finally, the Wi-Fi technology determines how efficiently data can be encoded into the transmissions.
You should follow the troublshooting tips given in the manual. It's available online at support.netgear.com. This will include removing sources of radio interference; moving the extender, either closer to the router or the devices; and changing the Wi-Fi channel.
Finally, I'll note that the TG862G appears to have terrible Wi-Fi. Assuming I found the correct specs (here), the TG862G supports 2.4 GHz, single-stream 802.11n Wi-Fi. The spec cites the best MCS Index supported (7) at HT20 (20 MHz channel). You can find the data rates for MCS Index 7 for 802.11n on Wikipedia (here). You'll see that this corresponds to 72.2 Mbps with 20 MHz channels with short preamble. This is a link rate. Real world, you'll get maybe 30 to 35 Mbps, tops, when near the router. You won't be able to use your entire 50 Mbps Internet service in the best case. The range is probably pretty poor, too, which might explain the terrible speeds through the extender.
If you can't get rid of the TG862G, then you may want to disable Wi-Fi on the TG862G. Buy another range extender, plug it into the TG862G and operate it as an Access Point (AP). A range extender with external antennas might be powerful enough to reach the other end of the house on its own. Otherwise, you can see if your WN3000RP will connect to the range extender. It is generally not recommended to connect range extenders to each other, but it may work when one is operating as an AP.
Hmmmm...
Family room -- Kitchen -- Dining room -- hallways -- bedrooms
That is the setup from south to north. (With the various applicances in the kitchen: microwave, oven, clock radio -- moving those is not an option. Neither is the setup in the family room movable)
I had put the extender in the hallway near the bedrooms, then moved the extender to its present location in the dining room. It seems to have a straight path to the cable modem (approx. 15 feet difference).
It seems to be a bit strange that the wifi connection with the Arris was great in our previous residence (but then everything was in a condo as well), but not so much here unaided.
Aided with the extender, the signal strength is excellent in either place, which had left me puzzled about the download speed problem (presently, I'm in one of the bedrooms, connected to the main network rather than the extender network. I did notice that the speed went from 39.0 Mbps to 26 Mbps, but with doors and walls, that may be normal).
Well, it's after 8 pm ET, so buying another range extender to use as an access point tonight will have to be considered on another day.
Thank you for your post; it did shed some light in some matters.
For the record, I did some checking of speeds in several locations between the base network (from the cable modem) and the extended network....
Done on July 2:
Network room range latency download upload
Base family room 65-130 Mbps 26ms 13.21 Mbps 6.46 Mbps
Base dining room 39-117 29 18.58 Mbps 6.39 Mbps
Extd dining room 72-130 29 130 kbps 1.15 Mbps
Base office* 26-52 28 1.14 Mbps 2.38 Mbps
Base office* 26-52 27 1.24 Mbps 6.84 Mbps
Extd office** 72-130 1250 err err
*Office is the first bedroom in the house; ** IPv6 not working, but IPv4 was on this test
Tests done using SpeedOf.Me
Done on July 6:
Base dining room not measured 27 16.41 6.52
Base office not measured 918 10 kbps 350 kbps
Base office not measured 33 130 kbps 570 kbps
When I turned on my computer this morning (7/14), I was connected on the base network, which had a speed between 6-24 Mbps, but quickly switched to the extended network, which has been running between 104-130 Mbps.
Latency: 1865 ms; download 140 kbps; upload 570 kbps
Switched back to the base network, which report no access in either IPv4 or IPv6 before changing to acees for IPV4 only, with speeds of 11-24 Mbps (with connectivity to the page being erratic)
Latency: 4141 ms; download 0 kbps (max 320 kbps); upload 580 kbps
It appears that the extended network is doing its job well as far as speed goes (with a max of 144Mbps), but download speeds behave as if it was on the base network.
Those are my observations; maybe I would have to obtain a router or another range extender to serve as an access point.