Daisy chain wifi routers to improve on Comcast wifi?

[dfyoung10]

I have Comcast ISP, and the Arris modem/router they provided gives poor penetration upstairs; signal strength in the -75db range. I bought a Netgear Nighthawk with the intention of having Comcast convert it to a bridge modem. When I hardwired the NG to the CC router via ethernet without changing to bridge mode, I discovered that it would broadcast the signal from the CC router, but with significantly better signal strength, in the -60 to -65db range when I log on to the new router with my tablet or laptop.

Am I missing something? Would it be likely to work even better if I go through the bridge modem routine? I have them on different channels so they don't seem to be interfering with each other.

thanks for your thoughts.

Doug

 

[bill001g]

If you have your new router cabled in its WAN port then you have double nat. Still this doesn't matter a lot unless you need to port map stuff from the internet.

The main reason to set the main router to bridge mode is so you can use the router features more effectively on the second router. You really only want a single router in your house just to make things simpler. You would run your new router as a AP which in effect makes it a dumb wireless switch.

Still none of this has any effect on the quality or strength of the wireless signal. As you have found there is some but not a huge difference between routers. The walls and floors in your house make much more difference than any different router.

The only way you are going to get a lot better signal levels is to take the floor out What you really need to do is try to find a way to run the ethernet cable upstairs. You could try other technology to substitute for the ethernet cable like powerline networks or MoCA.

 

[dfyoung10]

Thanks for the intelligent and cogent response that actually (gasp) addressed the question I was asking. The Internet at its best.

 

[Spacemom1]

I have Comcast ISP, and the Arris modem/router they provided gives poor penetration upstairs; signal strength in the -75db range. I bought a Netgear Nighthawk with the intention of having Comcast convert it to a bridge modem. When I hardwired the NG to the CC router via ethernet without changing to bridge mode, I discovered that it would broadcast the signal from the CC router, but with significantly better signal strength, in the -60 to -65db range when I log on to the new router with my tablet or laptop.

Am I missing something? Would it be likely to work even better if I go through the bridge modem routine? I have them on different channels so they don't seem to be interfering with each other.

thanks for your thoughts.

Doug

Doug-
As bill001g notes below, the best solution is to run an ethernet cable up to the other floor, however once you do that, getting the new router to work with the original one requires deconflicting the IP addresses. There's a great post on this site (tomshardware.com) that gives you step by step instructions. Search for "ultimate modem/router setup thread". Good luck!