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Forum Discussion
Bluegeek
May 26, 2020Follower
Extending R6220? Recommendations?
I have an R6220 wifi router running dual band 2.4/5 GHz. I am using the guest wireless feature to present a different SSID on 2.4 GHz (5 GHz turned off for guest). So basically three SSIDs on a sin...
plemans
May 26, 2020Guru - Experienced User
Something to keep in mind with standard extenders.
1. They're great if you don't have coverage and need to reach further.
2. They're going to cut throughput 50%. Reason why is they have to receive and retransmit using the same chip. And they can't do both at once. So it cuts the speed in half for wherever they're located.
3. the signal percentage isn't that big of a deal. Its more about speed/coverage. Reason why is things like 5ghz. It has much higher throughput so you might not have as much of signal as 2.4ghz but it might still be faster because of how it operates. Is that 51mbps the link speed or an actual speedtest speed? Because link speed isn't the same as throughput (actual speed)
4. If its actual throughput speed, do you need more than 51mbps? 4k streaming only needs 20-30mbps to stream
5. Placement is key with extenders. They need a good signal to rebroadcast.
That's some of the basics of extenders. for a standard extender, it works great if you're in an area with no signal or greatly reduced signal.
One thing you can do is check into the tri-band extenders. They have an extra 5ghz radio thats just for router----extender communication. so they don't take as much of a speed hit. but they are more expensive.