Trouble with WiFi quality

[engin33r_atl]

I just moved into a new house and promptly installed an Orbi. The router is installed in the basement, and the satellite is installed upstairs. The house is 2 floors with a basement. It's not a huge structure as the house itself is 40' wide by 50' deep. I've repeatedly had a ton of trouble on video calls...when sitting in the breakfast area, the video keeps pausing and dropping and coming back. When I move to the other side of the house, further from the satellite, the video quality was absolutely perfect. Since this is not a huge house, I'm stumped. I'm a mobile software dev and I basically don't know squat about networking or where to begin troubleshooting this.

A couple of notes:

- Both the router and satellite are running the latest firmware (1.4.0.16).

- I have 75 megabit internet service

- Ookla speed test reports 90 megabits down and 12 megabits up when I'm in the basement 10 feet away from the router.

- 1st floor, in the breakfast area which is 20' from the satellite and probably 40' from the router, Speed Test shows 25 down and 12 up.

- 1st floor, in the office/bedroom, which is ~40' from the satellite and 20` from the router, I'm getting 55 down and 12 up. After powering down cycling my iPhone's WiFi, I ran the test again and got 90 down and 12 up, which tells me the poorer performance was probably happening when connected to the satellite.

- On 2nd floor, in bedroom at front of house, furthest away from router and sat, I'm getting 45 down and 12 up.

- On 2nd floor in bedroom at back of house, I'm getting 50 down and 12 up.

So, what should I do to fix this? I think I expect to get the full 90 megabits all over the house. Eventually I'd like to upgrade to gigabit service since it's offered here, but obviously I need to get the wifi network sorted out first.

[peteytesting]

it sounds like you maybe connecting to the router in the breakfast area instead of the sat and this maybe why its lower , you may need to play with pklacement or adjust the power level on the router

[engin33r_atl]

How do you feel about the general placement of the router and the satellite? Are they in OK locations? Not too close or too far apart? I could move the router into the basement bonus room (against the wall shared with the basement bedroom), which would be a more central location. I could also move the satellite to just about anywhere, including the 2nd floor.

[peteytesting]

prob a good idea as long as the 5 gig backhaul will take the distance without too much loss

it really does sound like maybe a single big hunking router like an r8500 would have covered the lot if it where placed on the first floor and the orbi system might just be a case of too much wifi for what is by the sounds of it quite a small space to fill , eg it could be a case of too much of a good thing

[engin33r_atl]

I just ran a little test where I unplugged the satellite and ran a speed test from the breakfast area where I was getting spotty coverage. With the satellite powered off, I got 6.6 megabits down and 12 up. So, to me this tells me that earlier when I was getting 25 megabits down, I was connected to the satellite. This test also seems to indicate that a single router likely wouldn't give me whole house coverage, unless a single Orbi router isn't a good test case. 

And now as I've been writing this reply, I powered the satellite back on, and went to the spot where I got such bad signal earlier. I ran another speed test and now I got 90 megabits down, which was my goal this whole time. I haven't changed anything besides power-cycling the units. So now I'm totally confused. 

[peteytesting]

the only thing i would check is if the wireless adapter is connected to the 5 gig or 2.4 gig as this can make a big difference in throughput

[cyberprashant]

you can log into the satellite's (IP) page i.e. 192.168.1.3 (find the IP in the router's page and what IP is attached to which satellite).   Logging into the satellite will show what devices are connected (I can do this from the phone).   Get another satellite perhaps...have the costco setup which gives u a router + 2satellites working great (approx 3000 sq ft one floor house).  Great coverage into the yard