Trying to improve wifi bandwidth. Looking for ideas

[TimHarrold12]

Folks:

Thanks in advance for your time in replying. The power of forums is always surprising.

Current configuration:
2 level (rambler) home built of usual wood studs, sheet rock with metal ducting. Total Sq. Feet = 4100.

2 routers (Apple Airport Express, both). One in basement near middle of the basement that is connected to Comcast Modem. Second express is on the main floor (middle of the home and waist high). It is in bridge mode to the first--NOT REPEATER--as I have a Cat-5 running from the basement router to the main floor express router. Thus #2 gets full bandwidth.

1 Internet connection via cable modem (Comcast). I pay for 100 mbps and often get 70 to 90 mbps, when I'm in the same room of either router.

Overall speeds in the home are more than sufficient—except for one room, my office. Office, where I work from home every day, is at the corner of the home. From that office, under 2.4Ghz, I get 20 to 25 mpbs; if I switch to a 5Ghz I also set up I will drop to 10 or 15 mbps. Understandable as 2.4 travels father through walls, etc than 5.

If I walk from my office 15 feet closer to the router to my bedroom (both on the main floor) my speeds quickly reach 50. So clearly there is just enough sheet rock, studs and wires that my signal strengthen keeps dropping when I go to the office. Frustrating but it is what I’ve got.
I figure I have a few choices to try to improve my speed in my office, and would like others to opine on these, or offer other ideas.

Choice 1) Run a cat-5 cable from my office to my basement router and add another wireless router in my office that would be in bridge mode as well. I get this but I really want to avoid running more cable in the home—if possible. Keep in mind, I don’t need 70 or 100 mbps for work, just better than 20 to 25.

Choice 2) I'm not sure if this would be possible, but replace my 2nd Express router with a more powerful router that has a strong signal. I just don’t know if I connect a non-express router to an Apple Express router and still have it bridge properly. Open to thoughts here.

Choice 3) Replace both routers (I know Express are not the worlds greatest) and upgrade to 2 more powerful routers that will bridge well together and provide stronger signals to the office.
Choice 2 is less expensive—if possible—than Choice 3, but I realize I might have to go to 3 if 2 isn’t possible.

Open to ideas.

Thx!

 

[bill001g]

Even if a more powerful router actually existed the problem is more likely your end device. It is much more common for the end device especially if its portable to not be putting out full power.

If you really wanted to find out you could dig though the FCC database and read the radio output reports they post for certification. What you generally see is most well known routers put out very close to the maximum power allowed. There is only small variations between products. Unlike any website that does reviews the testing is much more controlled.

Because houses and testing environment vary so much you get inconsistent test results. Pretty much why every router you see people will claim it is the best ever or complain it has poor coverage.

In general all routers have more or less the same ability to send signals though walls, you will not find huge differences. Why some actually work better in some houses is a mystery but you would have to try every device to see what worked in your house since it appears it is the house more than the router than causes this.

I would go with option 1 but you could use powerline networks instead of the ethernet cable. Powerline works well in most houses but there is the rare house it does not work well in. I would use the newer av2 models that claim 1200m but you will not get anywhere near that speed.

 

[Saleh_5]

Install all your outdated network drivers from a driver updater tool.