[SOLVED] Advice on my current setup and possible change?

[PewterScreaminMach]

While my house is relatively small, it is one story and long with walls that seem to degrade signal pretty significantly compared to other places I have lived.

Below is my current setup, followed by what I'd like to do. Any advice or other suggested options would be much appreciated.

CURRENT SETUP
- coaxial cable from ISP for my gigabit internet service comes into house through master bedroom wall at one far end of house and runs into this unit, which acts as both modem and router (I own this): https://www.arris.com/surfboard/products/wi-fi-cable-modems/sbg7580-ac/

- this unit provides wifi to "entire" house, which is great for the first third of the house heading toward the other end, acceptable for the next 1/3 of the house, then severely degraded at the last 1/3 of the house, particularly in the garage and back deck where I often like to use wireless devices (phone, tablet, laptops)

- I also run an ethernet cable through the crawl space from the Arris modem/router to a switch in my living room in the middle of the house, which I then use to hard wire to my main desktop and streaming device in that same room (an ethernet cable each from the switch to the desktop and the streaming device)

WHAT I'D LIKE TO DO
- hoping to keep my budget well under $100, my thought was to buy a dedicated DOCSIS 3 gigabit-capable modem - such as the one below - to put where my current unit is in the bedroom, then replace my living room switch with my current Arris modem/router unit to act as a router only. This would allow me to continue to hard wire my living room devices while also moving the wifi source signal to a central location in the house, rather than having it at one far end of the house.

Example modem for my bedroom: https://www.amazon.com/MOTOROLA-MB7...ywords=docsis+3+gigabit&qid=1589683188&sr=8-2

FINAL QUESTION
Is this setup possible with my current Arris unit? Would it act as a router only, providing my main wifi network and also acting as a switch for my desktop and streaming device in the living room? Or is the only "input" signal the one from the coaxial cable connection on that unit?

Thank you in advance.

 

[bill001g]

Since you already have ethernet you simplest and likely cheapest option is to place a AP in the living room or whatever other rooms you have poor coverage. You do not have to buy a actual AP pretty much any router will do even ones that do not have a AP feature. You do not need anything special because when you run in AP mode it really is only using the radio chips and the ethernet ports.

 

[PewterScreaminMach]

Since you already have ethernet you simplest and likely cheapest option is to place a AP in the living room or whatever other rooms you have poor coverage. You do not have to buy a actual AP pretty much any router will do even ones that do not have a AP feature. You do not need anything special because when you run in AP mode it really is only using the radio chips and the ethernet ports.

Thanks for the advice. I have looked into Access Points and am a little unclear on if it's possible to set them up so that devices can use the same wifi network. I'd prefer to have one wifi network and one source of that wifi network, if possible, so that devices don't have to use multiple wifi networks or choose between which to connect to. But if that still makes more sense or will be a lot cheaper, then that's what I should do.

The router I have puts out a strong enough wifi signal for the entire house if it's centrally located, which is why I simply want to move it into my living room (middle of the house) without having to run coaxial cable across half the house down in the crawl space, which would be a giant pain.

 

[kanewolf]

Thanks for the advice. I have looked into Access Points and am a little unclear on if it's possible to set them up so that devices can use the same wifi network. I'd prefer to have one wifi network and one source of that wifi network, if possible, so that devices don't have to use multiple wifi networks or choose between which to connect to. But if that still makes more sense or will be a lot cheaper, then that's what I should do.

The router I have puts out a strong enough wifi signal for the entire house if it's centrally located, which is why I simply want to move it into my living room (middle of the house) without having to run coaxial cable across half the house down in the crawl space, which would be a giant pain.

The WIFI source a device uses is chosen by the device You CAN put the same SSID and password on a router and AP. The connection choice is made by the device. When you have multiple WIFI sources (APs) you actually want to turn DOWN the power so that there is more difference between sources. Also having the power higher on 5Ghz compared to 2.4Ghz can help devices choose 5Ghz rather than 2.4Ghz

 

[PewterScreaminMach]

The WIFI source a device uses is chosen by the device You CAN put the same SSID and password on a router and AP. The connection choice is made by the device. When you have multiple WIFI sources (APs) you actually want to turn DOWN the power so that there is more difference between sources. Also having the power higher on 5Ghz compared to 2.4Ghz can help devices choose 5Ghz rather than 2.4Ghz

Thank you for the info. I just don't want to run into a situation where my devices are for some reason trying to connect to the lesser signal of the router far away (when I'm outside on our back deck at the other end of the house, for example), rather than the AP in the living room.

You're saying that in this scenario - in theory - since the signal from the AP in the living should be significantly stronger when I'm out on the deck or in the garage, the device should just automatically notice that and switch over even if it's still getting a signal from the router in the bedroom (albeit a weaker signal)?

Is this an instant and ongoing thing the devices do (mostly iPhones, iPad, and a Windows laptop)? We do a lot of in and out with the phones, one end of the house to the other, having a toddler and a second baby due soon. Does this drain the device battery more quickly?

It seems clear from the responses here that members think the way to go is an AP in the living room and keep the router as my main wifi source in the bedroom. I certainly have no reason to doubt that from my limited knowledge, just trying to understand how it works and the pros and cons. I honestly haven't found a good article that explains them more in layman's terms with these sorts of basic questions, which is odd.

 

[bill001g]

The devices can be pretty dumb sometimes. They only have 1 radio chip so they can't look for signals while you are connected or you will get drops. They tend to stay connected to the first source until it gets very bad and then look for a better one.

You can of course force it by stop and start the wifi and it will generally pick the strongest signal.

Wifi was never really designed with roaming in mind. They could have made it like a cell phone network but they choose not to. Unlike a cell phone where the network is in control in wifi the end device is in control.

The use of AP connected via ethernet cables is the gold standard for large enterprise installations. It has been done this way since the beginning of wifi. It provides the best wifi converage and fancy systems can modify the signal power on the AP dynamically to try to get device to load balance between the AP. Only partially works again because the end device can decide to connect to something that it thinks is optimal but may not be.

In general it is not a huge issue for people. If it is running a little slow you just reset it and it works.