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Question

Improving Wireless Signal in a large house

Aug 23, 2015 11:51AM PDT

Hello,

I have a 3500 sq ft house and use Comcast 25 Mbps internet. The modem and router is located in the basement and the upstairs rooms cannot even stream video without it dropping after about 20 min or less. Internet speeds in general are also an issue. After reading about this, I have found three main options:

1) Invest in a second wireless access point upstairs (the house is wired for CAT5 and it is all hooked up).
2) Get a wireless extender. I've read that #1 is a better option than this since this will split the already limited WiFi signal/speed.
3) Get a better router that can cover the whole house. I'm currently running a Linksys EA6500 with the Motorola SB6141 Cable Modem. I'd love some suggestions on specific routers if this is the best option!

Thank you!
Kristin

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Some tips here.
Aug 23, 2015 12:23PM PDT
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Answer
not good location
Aug 23, 2015 12:58PM PDT

your router is not in a good location. it should be in the center of the home. it does not have to be even in the same room as the modem though you would need to run a wire to it. Also wifi signal tends to be better going down, not up.

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Question on location
Aug 24, 2015 4:32PM PDT

I'm a bit of a newbie on this. Can the cable modem be hooked up to ANY cable outlet? Or does it have to be down there since the cable comes into the house there? Thanks for your help!

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Try it and see
Aug 25, 2015 11:45AM PDT

Assuming signal strength is not an issue, another reason for connection loss is there are so many wi-fi APs setup with dynamic channel selection. As your systems go up and interferes with another or visa-versa the two devices either conflict or set another channel which sometimes looses the security hash and drops packets or the entire conversation by either condition.
As for moving it? Probably. See this link.
http://forums.xfinity.com/t5/Basic-Internet-Connectivity-And/High-pass-filters/td-p/479128
That being said you could probably move the modem anywhere. You could always just add cable from its present location.
That EA6500 should be able to do the job without a huge foil faced insulation barrier that is usually found between the basement and the main floor.

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can put modem cable on any cable.....
Aug 25, 2015 12:12PM PDT

...that's connected to the rest by splitters, hopefully bidirectional and high speed splitters. Some older cable systems had uni-directional splitters on older installs since it was just to send one way analog signal to a TV, but in practical terms those usually work both ways.

You can run a CAT5 between your current router LAN port and a wall port. You should then be able to attach the second router between it's WAN port and a wall port. You then set second router to different SSID and WPA encryption key, and anything that uses it can also create a second wifi connection on their device for it and set to connect automatically when in range, if that's desired.