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Sorry for being long winded...but please read on...
I am out in the sticks (Rural Ohio) and get 15 Mbps down / 2 Mbps upload by microwave from "local" grain elevators. The closest elevator I believe is like 5 miles away the next is 9 miles. We live in a 3800+ Sqft farm house that was built in 1900 and then renovated (gutted/floor plan modernized/added on) in mid 1990s. Including the main home (square) being lifted off its foundation to pour new basement walls. There is 2500 sqft on the main floor, 350 sqft or so in the basement (the first floor mostly has a Crawl under it), and remaining on the second floor ~1000 sqft.
My wifi issues appear to be limited to the far ends of the home. I can pick up my neighbors Wifi Signal which is weak but they are 1200-1300 plus feet away. The next closests homes are a mile away in all directions. Farm fields as far as the eye can see so my interference from other networks is limited at worse. My Netgear R6300V2 router is smack in the middle of the first floor dining room. I have considered moving it upstairs but the effort would be considerable as I am involving equipment (microwave) that is not my own and probably has not been moved since it was first installed. (10+ years ago at least - we have been here going on 7 years now). Not to mention power requirements for said equipment would need to be addressed. The plan is to put in a wired network but more on that later.
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The first problem side; laundry room(14X18), far bedroom (12X14), and finally the latest edition of a 2 car attached garage(24X24). The signal starts to drop as you go around the corner to the hall heading to the laundry room and far bedroom. The garage is off of the Laundry. A Wifi Intensity app is how I measured things.
The far bedroom is strong enough to support tablets and stream a TV. The signal reads in the 60s and 70s in strength (2G) in that room. As you go into the Laundry room the signal drops significantly even on the 2G side to the shared wall of the garage where its in the 20s and 30s. Probably related to the two refrigerators on one side of room. (have 5 kids)
The other side is on the far second floor sun room/office. It low signal affects certain devices and mostly in the one corner of the 14X16 room. Unfortunately this area happens to be the TV area. I used a Wifi Intensity app and once I walk past my desk the signal for the 2G drops from low to mid 70s to 30s almost immediately. The 5G is obtainable in one side of the room but is in the 50s for very large portion of the room. Every day on the opposite side of the room (still the far outside wall but on other side) the signal has not been a big problem. I am a software Engineer and use a computer daily for my now remote position. The 5G is usable but the 2G seems better overall.
I am thinking that I would like to add a extender in the main hall in the upstairs to handle the sunroom/office issue and basically increase the signal in the second floor entirely. I am thinking the Netgear EX6120. The strength is very strong in the upstairs hall( 90s intensity). The main upstairs has a stairway in the middle which basically goes to a first floor room
which is a slight left (mostly open staircase) to the area where the router is located.
I believe the reason the one corner in the sun room is bad is because there is a walled in chimney that is in the "line of sight" of the router to that TV corner. Placing the extender in the hall gives the extender a clear path to the router. Likewise the new proposed Extender will have at worse a interior uninsulated wall to pass signals thru in all of the upstairs rooms.
For the opposite side of the house (laundry and garage) I am thinking of adding another Netgear EX6120. Either at the start of the hallway (strong signal 80s) or there is a power outlet just as you walk into the laundry (70s low). I would like to get a signal to the garage which would also cover our rear patio. I had a old extender (5 years ago) previously at the laundry location which got me a decent signal to the garage. Unfortunately a spring thunderstorm took it out and our original Netgear R6300 router. Not to mention a slew of other electrical devices (a few light bulbs included).
Now finally my questions;
Does the above proposed extenders seem reasonable and if they WIFI connect directly to the Main router will there be any issues with having two extenders (I do not mind naming them differently)?
Then at my current 15mbps coming into the house and it does not appear any time soon to be increasing dramatically is my currently installed Wifi network enough to support the pipe coming into the house. Is there a bottle kneck like say at the Wifi Router as it is restraining the network thru put in any way?
Last question I see many of the these extenders contain ethernet ports. They seem like they can be used as access points. As my office has numerous electrical devices that support ethernet only. Most of which are not in use as I do not have a ethernet network setup in the office. Would I be better off adding a access point only device or one of these additional extenders to the possibly new Ethernet Office Network? So 3 extenders total or 2 extenders and a access point. I have read that going off another extender drops the speed/strength considerably.
You've asked a lot of questions. Lets go over a couple things.
Extenders are a great idea. But in your case I wouldn't recommend them. There's a couple reasons why.
You're already starting from a low starting threshold of 15mbps. A single/dual band extender drops speeds 50% of what it receives. So ifs in a spots thats only picking up 10mbps from the original 15mbps, its only going to be putting out 5mbps. This happens because single/dual band extenders have to use the same chip to go router-----extender and then extender----devices. And they can't do both at once. If you were starting at a speed poing of 100mbps, its a little different because you have some room to lose throughput and still have enough bandwidth to do what needs doing
you're needing multiple extenders. whenever people are needing more than 1 extender, I usually recommend picking up a mesh system versus trying to piece together either a bunch of extenders that have different ssids or going with mesh extenders that might not be connecting right because there's more than 1. When you have an actual mesh system like orbi, you have a router controlling the system as well as you have a single ssid so you can roam throughout the home and not have to constantly switch networks.
I'd recommend looking at the triband Orbi setups. Reason why is the tribands have a dedicated wireless backhaul between the routers/satellites that also supports wired backhaul. meaning it doesn't take that 50% throughput hit. When you're already starting at a low speed, ever mbps that you can preserve is going to help. You don't need a top of the line mesh system but you'd want one with the triband. You could go with a dual band but in that case I'd highly recommend hardwiring in the satellites to preserve those speeds.
Amazon has been having a lot of newed RBK43 systems lately. That'd provide a router and 2x satellites for around the same prices as 2x extenders.
I see RBK43-200NAR (Renewed) all over the place online.
Are these the units you are referring? Or is there another?
If it so, that is in the budget, and if necessary I could run a cable to downstairs (Laundry/hall/first floor). The upstairs could be done as well a little more difficult but possible.
I have wired 2 houses completely the last had a 24 port gigabit switch (full-livingroom was a long 27 foot room and it had 6 ports) and a wifi that covered a very large area outside in the suburbs. Hosted a lot a LAN parties in those days. My sister is in the place today and uses the network even today for LAN parties.
This new house would be very simple to wire but I am waiting for the furnace project (already bought but probably will not be done till next year - Fall) to drop the lines from the upstairs to downstairs area. It will be much simpler at that point. Looking this Mesh system over it looks like I could use it in my future plans as well.
I see RBK43-200NAR (Renewed) all over the place online.
Are these the units you are referring? Or is there another?
If it so, that is in the budget, and if necessary I could run a cable to downstairs (Laundry/hall/first floor). The upstairs could be done as well a little more difficult but possible.---You wouldn't need to with the rbk43 kit. its a triband so has the dedicated wireless backhaul. I was just referring to using a wired backhaul if you bought a dual band kit.
I have wired 2 houses completely the last had a 24 port gigabit switch (full-livingroom was a long 27 foot room and it had 6 ports) and a wifi that covered a very large area outside in the suburbs. Hosted a lot a LAN parties in those days. My sister is in the place today and uses the network even today for LAN parties.
This new house would be very simple to wire but I am waiting for the furnace project (already bought but probably will not be done till next year - Fall) to drop the lines from the upstairs to downstairs area. It will be much simpler at that point. Looking this Mesh system over it looks like I could use it in my future plans as well.---For the speeds you're on, a solid AC mesh system like the rbk43 should more than cover your speeds. I've used it on a gigabit setup and while it can't max out gigabit (wireless AC won't) it more than cleared 250mbps in my home.
Ordered the RBK43-200NAR this evening and it should be to me by Sunday.
I also picked up a 4 foot power bar to help clean up power connections to the Router Area.
I never mentioned next to the router is an older Commercial Western Digital NAS (4TB). It was an old work one that was updated to a much larger unit. Also there is a chinese camera system also on the network. Both are direct connects to the router. The cameras are WIFI but the main unit is a direct connect to the router. There is also a Magic Jack and a UPS in the router area.
I will probably install everything either Sunday evening or Monday after work. I will update the results.
