I'm wondering what the current best solution is.

i'm considering

-DDWRT router acting as a range extender.

-Router behind router at base station shutting down 2Wire router and a second hot spot placed on opposite side of residence on a different subnet than ethernet


Is there a third option or a best option today?

When I had uverse I turned wifi off on the uverse router and put it into switch mode. Not sure if you can do that anymore though.

I put my own router inside of the ATT box and added access points as required. I only have 2k square feet though, so my router did the trick by itself. I just don't trust the ATT boxes like I do my own...

Hardware UBNT UniFi access points

Why would you want a 2nd subnet? No file or printer sharing.

I agree with an ubiquiti as m-walker suggested above but I wouldn't go with the Unifi series. They are designed more for multiple access point deployment instead of single access point deployments (if you are going with multiple then I highly recommend it) I'd instead go with a picostation from ubiquiti.

I'd stay far away from range extenders since they half your throughput. The best option is to see if your uverse device supports bridging, use ddwrt as your router, and get as many access points as you need to cover your house. Depending on size and condition it could be 1-8 for an average home and depending on if you need coverage outdoors or in a basement. To connect these to your network I'd hardwire them in, either run a cable yourself or get someone to run cables in the wall to all the APs. If you're in a bind you can use the ethernet over power adapters but they do have some drawbacks.

If we're going to give you any more advice I feel we'd need more detail on coverage area, layout, etc.


Best of luck

I have a Netgear N600 router (top of the line a few years ago) attached to the crappy modem/router supplied by AT&T and have the built-in wifi on the AT&T modem turned off.

Then I have a Netgear N300 wifi extender at the farthest point in my apartment.

The extender really only gets used when I'm in my back bedroom, but it has the added bonus of having a gigabit ethernet connection as well to connect wired equipment.

I know this probably isn't the ideal set up, but it seems to work fine, I live in an apartment building and this effectively drowns out the other networks.

In the next few weeks I'll be upgrading the old router to a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 AC1900 router and swapping out the extender for a Netgear AC750 wifi extender, since all my devices are now capable up to AC. I am trying to do some research on a better way to do this all though.

I'll look at Ubiquiti. If I go that route should I just shut off the uverse wifi and just hit the APs?

I probably will start at three.

Two downstairs spread out at a good distance and one upstairs dead center. That should theoretically cover it. If I have to do three downstairs there isn't a great spot to do a center one in the ceiling, but I could just stick one in a cabinet or something.

Do I need a special switch to do this? It's not clear if that's the case since these appear to get power over ethernet. Does the Uverse switch provide support for this?

They use POE injectors. One cable connects to your LAN and the other to the WAP.

No special switch needed, just plug into uverse LAN ports.

Ok, so I got them in and hooked up.

They are showing solid green, but I don't really think i am getting any of my devices to pick them up.

I did what most people advise which is to copy the ID and password from the Uverse 2-Wire and keep the 2-Wire running.

Also gave the uverse and each of the AP their own channel.

Is there an extra step to take here? What is a for sure way to tell I'm actually getting anything from the AP, because it seems like nothing really has changed at all.

I am interested in this topic as well. Out of curiosity, why wouldn't I just turn off the 2wire wifi and purchase a router (like the ASUS RT-AC66U) and use its wifi?

I should note that my house is not wired for Ethernet so I am looking for the bed method without having to rewire the house.

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I am interested in this topic as well. Out of curiosity, why wouldn't I just turn off the 2wire wifi and purchase a router (like the ASUS RT-AC66U) and use its wifi?

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I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't.

On a related note, this afternoon I'm taking my WiFi extender back to Best Buy to exchange toward the cost of a better router. My 3 year old Netgear N600 router is kickin' the bucket.

The extender worked great, and I will probably buy another very shortly. I know this sounds stupid, but I'm primarily going this route because I was having latency issues when trying to play Minecraft on the LAN while one computer was connected to the extender and the other was connected to the router.

So right now there's a Nighthawk R7000 sitting on a shelf with my name on it.

My suggestion is the power line network adapters. They are inexpensive and do what you need.

TP-Link makes some surprisingly good ones.

Our router claims a "beamforming antenna array". We get full bars everywhere and see the same speed through WiFi as we do through the modem Ethernet port.

I want to avoid turning this thread into yet another window fruit war, so I'm not going to mention make and model.

There are several "beamforming" router solutions from various manufacturers. I'm just saying that ours works very well and they are definitely worth a look for large area WiFi coverage. We're at 100 Mbps.

I brought home my Nighthawk R7000 yesterday.

WOW, amazing difference. I get full bars everywhere in my apartment, even though the router is in a corner bedroom. I also get full bars outside the apartment. My cell phone didn't drop off the wifi this morning until I was in my car and halfway across the parking lot.

It has also made my internet browsing noticeably faster. Pages themselves don't load any faster, but domain names are resolved more quickly and all of the "other" stuff that goes on other than just downloading data happens noticeably faster.

A++ would recommend. If you have a really big house and/or a lot of devices they have an even more powerful version, the Nighthawk x4.

Unless you really have a ton of devices though I'd suggest topping out at the X4, as the next model up the X6 is actually a small step backwards from the X4 in terms of speed, but more expensive because it has two discreet 5ghz networks, it is basically two R7000s in one box.

I too am experiencing weak Wifi signal with Uverse. Can even use the wifi downstairs on some devices.

I am probably switching to comcrap soon for inet and was curious how to get a STRONG AC1900 wifi signal reaching to my back yard if possible.

I have Ethernet access at multiple points from my own wire drops. I am just not sure what equipment to get in order to extend/strengthen the same Wifi network.

I got my ubiquits set up and running. I don't think the 2wire liked sharing a name with them so I gave them their own SSID. I had to crawl through the bowels of my attic to chase CAT5 around, but it's done.

I think what I'll end up doing is shutting down the 2Wire and then giving the ubiquti the same name as the 2wire used to have.

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I got my ubiquits set up and running. I don't think the 2wire liked sharing a name with them so I gave them their own SSID. I had to crawl through the bowels of my attic to chase CAT5 around, but it's done.

I think what I'll end up doing is shutting down the 2Wire and then giving the ubiquti the same name as the 2wire used to have.

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I hope you mean you were chasing CAT6 around, or you MAY have already handicapped your network significantly.

I've been trying to set up my network similarly and seem to have latency issues. I am running a Medialink wireless N (300mbps) router hard wired behind the 2wire LAN (via home wired cat 5) in the living room. I tried duplicating the SSID but my devices see both (might be a lowercase/password issue).

The 2Wire is unbelievably slow.

Dedicated Devices connected
2wire: 5 Sonos devices
PS3
Wifi printer

MediaLink:
Uverse wireless receiver for patio (when running it will bog down the network to the point that no other device functions on it.
ATT home base (allows cell phone to work better inside - due to radiant barrier I suppose)
WD MyCloud supposedly but u can't see it on anything other than laptop, even then it's intermittent. I need to get this to work and be able to access from anywhere.

2 iPads, 3 iPhones and a laptop roam back and forth between both networks. Maybe 2-3 of these are active at any given time.

Looking at this, it looks like I need to move everything over to the Medialink wifi. Are these too many devices for that one router? Is there any setting I can adjust to speed up or make my system more efficient? I'm thinking of adding 4-6 wifi cameras with a DVR ( and ability to pull up on iphone/iPad) and a MiCasa Verde Home automation system.
Thoughts?

I don't think uverse supports speeds that cat6 will make a difference with, yet at least.

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I don't think uverse supports speeds that cat6 will make a difference with, yet at least.

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It's not just about the download and upload speeds from your internet connection. There is also LAN traffic, both between devices and between the devices and the LAN.

fortunately there isn't THAT much difference between CAT-5e and CAT-6 in practice.

I don't know if you have a NAS, but for me it was by far the best addition to the network setup.

I could be wrong but we ran those cables for WAPs, he's good

Ttt

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I'll look at Ubiquiti.

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Ubiquiti has two home routers that I know of. The cheaper version is normal strength while the HP (high power) version is supposedly the same power as the outdoor fixed point Internet radios.

I'd suggest the HP.

I have one in my office that I can readily access from anywhere in the building.

Oddly enough, this one is broken -- it won't pass traffic over WAN.

Fortunately, I don't need it to do that. I have it sent up as a bridge and plugged the cable into one of the 4 LAN ports. Even with the inability to pass traffic over the WAN port, it works just fine for my use.

The reason I use it as a bridge is to that it will pass both IPv4 and IPv6. While it can do IPv6 on the router, there is nothing in the firmware to set it up and I haven't yet seen the necessary instructions for setting it up via command line.

I have five more Ubiquiti HP routers coming in the two or three days and ten regular power Ubiquiti routers in a week or two.

A friend of mine "meshes" two Airport Expresses with an AirPort Extreme and claims great coverage in a huge home and very easy setup.

Do you just need it for Internet or do you have a need to be connected to other devices (printers media libraries) on your network?

Old bump, but it's what came up in search and I'll go ahead and preemptively tell you it's a cool starry bra... but I just moved into a two-story house and the router wasn't reaching the far bedroom upstairs very well. I looked at a few off-the-shelf options, and although moving has been a beotch as it is and I was ready to just throw money at it, my old Linksys router kept staring me in the face and I decided to try to create a repeater bridge to service the kids' Netflix desktop and extend the wifi to the far reaches of the upstairs.

It was pretty damn easy, and it works like a champ. I'm really impressed with DD-WRT, especially since it breathed new life into a decade-old router and saved me from purchasing another solution. Good stuff, highly recommend.

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I brought home my Nighthawk R7000 yesterday.

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This is what I used before I switched to Google Wifi (fairly large house). It is a great router.