[SOLVED] wired/wireless networking to multiple buildings

[dpschuste]

Dear tom's community,
I run a small home business out of 3 multiple buildings--each about 30-40 yards apart--on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Our internet provider is HughesNet. Hughesnet provides maximum about 25-30 Mbps down. The set-up is as follows:

1. The satellite dish feeds to a Hughesnet HT2000 modem/router in the basement of the house.
2. From that central router, we have blue CAT 5 cable which runs to the 3 other buildings.
3. In the buildings, the ethernet cable plugs into a Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Router, Model WNDR3400v2 which I think is configured as a wireless access point (ie. not as a router), though I am not sure exactly how to confirm that. Each of those Netgear routers provides a 2.4 & 5ghz wifi network to its building. From every building I can see the 2.4ghz network of each of the other buildings.

This network worked fine when I was the only one here, but now my husband and 3 kids are also working/going to school from home. Last week, in an effort to get faster speeds/more reliable connection, we upgraded to Hughes Business. I think the signal is pretty good--as good as satellite is going to get--but we are still struggling. Kids are getting kicked out of zoom classes and sometimes we can't connect at all.

Among the 5 of us, there are probably about 13 devices, almost all Apple, going at any given time. 5 laptops, 5 phones, and 3 tablets.

The installer suggested that too many devices on the HughesNet router might be an issue, so I have purchased a Netgear Nighthawk X6S AC 4000--it arrived today and is still in the box. My questions are these:

1. the installer said to hook the new router up to the old one and "split the traffic" between them--but online research shows I should disable the HughesNet router and let the Nighthawk do all the work so they don't interefere?
2. Does the fact that I can see the Netgear 2.4ghz networks from the outbuildings (each has a different name) mean that the networks might all be interfering (and slowing) each other even though they are 30-40 yards apart?
3. I'm also wondering--do routers used only as access points need to have their firmware updated, as those Netgear routers haven't had that done in years. Or would I get better performance if I replaced those routers with new Netgear access points?

thanks in advance for any comments or advice on all of this!
best,
Tricia

 

[kanewolf]

You may have to look at using cellular for video conferencing. Sending a signal 25000 miles into space and back, causes a lot of delay (hundreds of ms) that ruin video meetings.

Your problem isn't your infrastructure, it is your ISP.