Rats nest with two routers and a router modem- annoyed wifey

[Bostonontario]

Hi,
I just went out and bought the Nighthawk R7000 to replace my Linksys EA4500. I live in a 1960's era two storey ranch home with steel mesh/concrete walls. The wifi in the main living area in the basement is tolerable at best.

I am posting to find out what tweaks I should make to my setup so my wife gets off my case about a "new router that was suppose to fix the poor basement wifi issue"

I have my Bell modem (wifi disabled) in the basement with a few devices hardwired to it and then a dual run of cat 6 run to my master bedroom where the netgear R7000 (DHCP turned OFF) handles Wifi for the whole house.

Im curious if I should add the ea4500 to the bell modem to give wifi to the basement and set both the ea4500/r7000 up in bridge mode or wireless access point mode? or run a cat 6 off the r7000 to the ea4500 and set it up that way or another way all together?

In my network I am running a PS3/PS4 (hardwired) and use the iphones/ipads on the wifi only.

Thanks in advance!

 

[BuddhaSkoota]

Im curious if I should add the ea4500 to the bell modem to give wifi to the basement and set both the ea4500/r7000 up in bridge mode or wireless access point mode? or run a cat 6 off the r7000 to the ea4500 and set it up that way or another way all together?

The best (and simplest) configuration would be to connect both the Linksys and Netgear directly to the Bell, and configure both as APs.

 

[Bostonontario]

to be clear before I dive into this - disable wifi on the bell modem/router and from the lan ports, run cat 6 to each device. I then plug each device (r7000 and ea4500) to the computer and make them access points AND then put them in their final spots in the home?

two quick additional questions:
If I am downstairs, my iphone or wireless device will or should switch to the best signal giving device? I assume it will not be seamless because each device will have a separate SSID.

I will still be able to connect hardwired devices to each as the Bell modem/router will handle all DHCP assignments?

 

[g90814]

Yes, you have all the correct ideas now

You don't have to connect each of the access point routers directly to the Bell, you can chain them if that's easier. If they are set up right, any device plugged into any of the routers ethernet ports will be on the network managed by the Bell DHCP.

In fact, there may be settings on the access point routers to make their WAN/Internet ports into ethernet ports, so you'll have an extra connection available.

For each of the access point routers, you basically turn off their DHCP, and give them a static IP that is outside the range provided by the Bell modem/router, but on the same subnet. If the Bell router gives IP's in the 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.50 range, make the IPs for the access points 192.168.1.51 or higher.