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using 2 wifi extenders

greenastro
Follower

using 2 wifi extenders

I am successfully using an EX6100 to boost my home internet but there is still an area that the signal is poor in-I have purchased a second extender- AC1200 dual band wifi mesh extender- but want to know if I can set this up in the poor signal area on the same network as the EX6100 without diminishing the signal speed from the router. 

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plemans
Guru

Re: using 2 wifi extenders

yes and no. 

Can you use it? Sure. 

Does it matter how you use it? For sure. 

 

Reason I say this is that single/dual band extenders drop throughput 50% just based on how they have to work. Because they have to use the same chip to go router---extender  and then extender----device and they can't do both at once, their throughput is cut in half.  Add in distance/obstruction/interference and its even less than that. 

And thats just for 1 extender. 

If you daisy chain them (router--->extender---->extender) your throughput is going to be significantly worse. 

So if you have to use 2x extenders, make sure to go 

Extender<---------router---------->extender so they aren't daisy chaining off each other. 

And even then, sometimes you can have issues if you set them up in mesh mode as they can end up connected to each other and not back to the router. 

 

Its the main reason that if someone is needing more than 1 extender, I recommend moving to a full mesh system like Orbi or the MK nighthawk. Then a router is controlling the system. Plus the triband versions don't take the same 50% hit because they have a dedicated backhaul. 

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