Question Need to Extended Signal from AT&T Gateway

I have a friend who only has AT&T DSL internet service available. For that service, they use a Gateway. They had given (or leant him) an Arris NVG 589 at some point. I didn't look too hard into this thing one I found that it was fairly old and somewhat limited in the wireless technology it supported. Since his internet speed was much slower than it should be, (based on a speed test compared with the plan he had)
I recommended he call ATT to check on his service and see if they could get him a better unit. So he now has an Arris bgw210-700 which seems to be a better unit as far as wireless technology supported.

The problem is, he is reporting that wireless hasn't improved much, if any. The main concern is a workshop just outside the house (maybe 10 feet), but I think wireless in the house is pretty slow as well (I haven't been out since the "upgrade"). I am looking for recommendations for extending this wireless network. With this DSL Modem/Gateway, would I be best off with a couple range extenders? Would a mesh work with this? He bought a couple cheap ones a year or so ago, and I helped him set the in initially, but I don't think they are doing much of anything now, as they show full signal and Internet connection on the laptop right next to one of them, but web pages load very slowly, if at all. Now that he is consulting me before buying, I want to get him something that works well. I just don't know enough about these gateways.
 
repeater and/or mesh should always be your very last option. Key to the working as well as they can is they must be placed where they can get strong signal from main router but can still send the signal to the remote location. Many times this location does not really exist when a wall is blocking the signal. In a big open room it would be about 1/2 between.

You example of strong signal but poor speed is exactly what happens when you just place them in the rooms that have weak signal. The signal from the repeater to the end device has improved but the repeater is getting the same crappy signal from the router the end device used to. Because of the extra wifi signal and complexity of the repeater it makes it even slower. Even in best case you will easily lose 1/2 the bandwidth.

You need to try other solutions that use some form of wires first. Ethernet is always best especially if you need to go outside the house. You can then consider MoCA device is you have coax cable near the router and the remote room. These can run at full gigabit speed. You can also use powerline networks. The tend to not be real fast but many times faster than using a repeater solution. They key thing is powerline is very consistent on its speed and latency unlike wifi. It depends on the application but most things do not need a lot of speed, game prefer the consistent performance since they use almost no bandwidth. The only thing that truely needs speed is downloads. B
 
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Lutfij, ATT was nice enough to route your link to their main page.

bill001g, appreciate the recommendations. I had some time tonight to do some further scouring, and it does look possible to use this device with a router, just need to disable a few things. I also had not considered powerline. I will need to look into that. They do have DIRECTV. I don't know if/how that interfaces with the Gateway, as there is a cable and splitter for it right near the device, so I will need to check that too.
 
Directtv is one of the few things that can not share the wire with moca. You would need to keep them seperate if you have enough wire. Moca works fine with cable tv and cable internet and even some other things that run on coax but directtv is one the few that will not coexist with moca.

The key feature you need to run a repeater/mesh device is the main router must support something called WDS. It is used to get past the security where the mac address of the end device is used in the encryption keys. This usage is not actually in the wifi standards unless they added it recently. It is basically a hack that has been done for so long all the router manufactures have figured out how to be compatible with each other. Many time it is disabled on the main router or you must put in lists of repeater mac addresses that can connect. This is mostly a issue for when you can't trust someone who has your wifi password to set a repeater and then share it without a password for example.
 
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I have suggested power line devices, as the only external device we are concerned about is the laptop in the other building. Any wireless devices in the house (checking if he has any) should do well enough with the wifi on the Gateway. Will let you know how it goes.
 
They make powerline devices with wifi radios...ie AP built into the remote unit if you were to need wifi. You can of course just use a old router as a AP in the remote room plugged into the powerline.

Note different building might not work so be sure you can return the powerline units. To even have a chance the buildings must be feed from the same main panel/meter. I would look at device that have a 1000 or 2000 number on them. These use a newer technology that works better on longer runs and has less issues when devices are on different circuit breakers.
 
Just to wrap this up, they were on the same power line, I suppose going from one building to another was too much for the powerline adapter. I ended up finding a better spot for his wifi extender on the outside of the building (weather protected). It isn't perfect, but MUCH better than it was when I was out there, and good enough for what he needed it for.