[SOLVED] Nighthawk R7000 Coverage Bad After <30ft

[dlpack09]

I have a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 router I purchased a bit back to theoretically improve my wifi in my home. Our home is excessively large (about 2000 sq ft, long ranch style, single story). The router is placed centrally in the house.

My internet comes in from ISP around 15-20 down/4-5 up. If I'm plugged direct into the router via ethernet, I see these sames speeds. Similarly if I connect wifi within about 3ft, close to the same (usually around 12-13 down still); signal here is at about -10dBm. However, if I walk more than 25-30' away, signal drops to about -70dBm and speeds drop down to about 1.0 down/.5 up. There are literally only two walls it goes through to my office when this occurs (both standard sheetrock walls without insulation).

I'm really trying to figure out why this is occurring. I bought the R7000 thinking it should be able to cut through most standard stuff and give pretty good range, but so far, it is no better than any other router I've ever had (possibly worse, truthfully).

Am I missing something?

 

[Supahos]

How good your wiring is seems to have a big effect on range through walls. In my house slightly bigger ranch style house I know where my router is I can hold my phone where no outlets are between me and the router at the far ends of the house and have good signal. If I get in spots with exposed wires in boxes between me and it I can't be 15 feet away in spots

 

[BuddhaSkoota]

I have a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 router I purchased a bit back to theoretically improve my wifi in my home. Our home is excessively large (about 2000 sq ft, long ranch style, single story). The router is placed centrally in the house.

My internet comes in from ISP around 15-20 down/4-5 up. If I'm plugged direct into the router via ethernet, I see these sames speeds. Similarly if I connect wifi within about 3ft, close to the same (usually around 12-13 down still); signal here is at about -10dBm. However, if I walk more than 25-30' away, signal drops to about -70dBm and speeds drop down to about 1.0 down/.5 up. There are literally only two walls it goes through to my office when this occurs (both standard sheetrock walls without insulation).

I'm really trying to figure out why this is occurring. I bought the R7000 thinking it should be able to cut through most standard stuff and give pretty good range, but so far, it is no better than any other router I've ever had (possibly worse, truthfully).

Am I missing something?

If you are using the 5GHz band, try switching to the 2.4GHz one (and vice versa). The 2.4GHz band has better range/penetration, while 5Ghz is less susceptible to common sources of interference.

Routers use different technologies to help improve speed, but max transmit power is limited by regulation, so it's difficult for manufacturers to improve range despite claims of better coverage.

I have a similar size house, but have found it necessary to have 2 wifi access points in different areas of the home to provide good coverage.

 

[Solandri]

Similarly if I connect wifi within about 3ft, close to the same (usually around 12-13 down still); signal here is at about -10dBm. However, if I walk more than 25-30' away, signal drops to about -70dBm and speeds drop down to about 1.0 down/.5 up. There are literally only two walls it goes through to my office when this occurs (both standard sheetrock walls without insulation).

Each 3dB represents a halving (or doubling) of the signal strength. Since going from 3 ft to 30 ft is 10x the distance, by the inverse square law you'd expect to see a 3*log2(30/3) = 11.7 dB drop. You are seeing a 60 dB drop.

Since the signal attenuation due to distance is only supposed to be 12 dB, the remaining 48 dB loss is likely coming from obstructions. In my experience, -70 dB is near the limit for most WiFi equipment to establish a reliable connection, so I'm not surprised you're seeing 1 Mbps down.

Is there some way to position the router at the end of a hall, so you can test the signal strength at 30 ft through air, no obstructions, and see if you get the calculated 12 dB drop (to -22 dBm)? The wild card here is that the router will automatically ramp power up/down depending on connection quality. If your router is doing this improperly, it could cause larger dB fluctuations than expected. In which case I'd say it's either a defective router a defective WiFi card in your computer.

The one thing I find really odd about your problem is that 802.11ac or 802.11n can easily maintain 15-20 Mbps on even a poor or marginal connection. 1.0 Mbps is the speed of 802.11b, which was released in 1999. Unless your numbers actually mean MB/s?