Optimizing network for large home

[Kyle Darden]

To start off I live in a large home with my parents and we are trying to get the wireless to reach my room which is on the other side of the house. Money isn't an issue, but we aren't trying to spend an outrageous amount. We are just trying to get the connection some what equal through out the home.

We have Comcast internet and the speed is good the only problem is that we switched to directTV for the TV service, so we had to move the modem and router to a room on one side of the house due to how the wiring in the house is ran. We tried to use the adapter things that you plug into the wall to run the internet through the electrical wires, but the signal was diminished too much to have a strong connection at the other side.

Our next idea is to use cat5 we have running from where the router/modem used to be located (which is in a centralized location) to the room that the modem is currently in. The wire isn't connected to a jack in the modem room currently so we have some guys coming to set it up for us.

Our new modem has a router build into it as well, which I'm not entirely fond of because it seems that it never works quite as well as having it separate. We have a really good ASUS router that I want to use for the primary wireless functions and we are going to plug the cat5 to the modem then have the ASUS on the other side to have the wireless centralized.

Does it really matter if the modem has the wireless going if nothing is connected to it? Or would it be better for the speed to turn the routing functions off on the modem and rely only on the ASUS.

The router is ASUS RT-AC66U and has ac-1750. The modem is decent, but I'm sure that the ASUS has better wireless capabilities. If the model of the modem is necessary I can get it, I just don't think its entirely relevant in this situation.


Any suggestions would be appreciated we are tired of having fast internet, but it being crippled because of range issues!! Thanks in advance.

 

[kicsrules]

doesnt matter if its something is connected or not to the modem, i would leave it as it is since would cover another part of the house, before you buy anything i suggest that you make some tests and see if the range/speed is good if not .. go for a WDS system ( dd wrt modems can do this and they're cheap)

 

[ingtar33]

oi... you're mixing lingo a bit... there is a difference between a router, a modem and an access point.

the modem is what connects to your internet ~ cable/dsl whatever. that modem will typically have wired and wireless networking built in. if that's the case this is the first thing you set up as you want your network to run. NOW. it sounds like you have a wireless asus router in the middle of your house. i would log into your asus router when it's powered on and connected to your network and set it up to be an ACCESS POINT; this means it no longer will have it's own ip address, nor will it manage much of anything... it will simply increase the range of your wireless and wired networking like a network switch.