Help with Home Wireless Issue

[gdr_11]

I know this issue has been discussed before, but i have a bit of a twist on some of the previous discussions.

Basically, I have a situation where the home I bought only has a coax and phone jack in the media room. There are no other coax connections anywhere else in the house. In addition, the previous owner has filled the majority of the attic crawl space with spray in foam, making running a line to the back of the house where my office is impractical unless I drill through the brick exterior and run cable under the eaves all the way to the other end of the house which I am not inclined to do.

In any case, I have Suddenlink ISP service with an ARRIS router. Since the router does not have an external antenna, I can't add an extension antenna to the router, and since my Dell desktop also has an internal antenna, the same goes for the computer. I did connect a Netgear 150 USB adapter but it basically provides the same 2 bars and slow speed as the internal Dell unit does. I also bought a Belkin wireless extender but it would not pick up the signal from my ARRIS router and their support was unable to make it work for me as well. It did, however, give my five bars on the wifi from a couple of my neighbors so I know it should have worked, albeit it would cost me about half of my speed working as a repeater.

I guess I am looking for any way to extend the broadcast ability of the ARRIS router or the receiving capability of the Dell internal antenna. The ARRIS is a model DG2460 and the Dell is a Inspiron i3847-4615BK (3.40 GHz Intel Core i3-4130 Processor, 8GB DDR3, 1 TB HDD, Windows 7 Professional).

I am tired of snail pace internet and often resort to taking my tablet into the media room where there is a good signal. There are three rooms between my office and the router including two brick walls and all of the kitchen appliances.

Any suggestions would be appreciated although I am wanting to say away from fixes that cost several hundred dollars or more.

[Iknownot]

Buy a better router?

One that plays nicely with wifi extenders if you end up needing one anyway? And you are going to be looking at spending $200-300 if you need a decent router and a wifi extender.

[Den60]

I've had good luck with the ASUS routers.

[NYT]

i believe arris is just a rebranded motorola surfboard. you most definitely should be able to connect an extender to that surfboard.

how far away are you placing the extender?

[Fizz]

Use an ethernet over powerline set. It leverages the 120v outlets to pass along ethernet over the copper already in your walls.

There is a potential it won't work well, depending on how your cabling, but this is the easiest, most reliable and cost effective way to solve your problem without complex construction or serious wi-fi analysis and trial/error. If it works, but it most likely will.

Like this.

https://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-Powerline-Adapter-Starter-TL-PA4010KIT/dp/B00AWRUICG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476222013&sr=8-1

Caveat is you CANNOT use a surge protector with these as they generally filter out the signal.

[LJG619]

Ethernet over Powerline is probably your best option. I recommended this to my buddy who needed access in his basement and it worked out for him. Other than that get a dedicated wireless router instead of a hybrid modem/router.

[fishmonger]

option 1 go with eathernet over power line like has been said.

option 2 personally i am not a fan of Belkin. the ones i have had in the past were junk. i would get a better router to hook up with external antannas. if that still doesnt work you can try the extenders as well. most routers they give away are junk.

[the86d]

I have a 802.11N Asus, but this is what I should have gotten:

https://www.amazon.com/Asus-Wireless-AC1200-Dual-Band-Router/dp/B01ATNHG36/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1476272256&sr=8-8&keywords=Asus+AC-

I currently have a Asus RT-N66U, and it has been pretty good, and would buy another Asus.
(I noticed some glitches, which are mostly cosmetic in the web-interface, and config just take longer than they should to find/config compared to other devices I have had. Nothing a typical home-user should be concerned with.)

You should disable your current AP (wireless part of your current router) when you add another, unless you know they are not chatting on one of the 3 802.11G channels (1, 6, or 11)

If you like to tinker, Xirrus APs that I have dealt with have a built-in Spectrum Analyzer that let me see what channels are less congested (or even used by you, or your neighbors) so you can use said channels instead. 11 wasn't even used in my neighborhood, nor was one of the 5Ghz bands, until I switched to them:


I had a Xirrus sitting in my closet for a long time, and recently plugged it in to check it out... [EDIT:] It appears that the license code does not get wiped when factory-resetting with an RJ-45=>Serial cable. So buying a used one (provided that you have a non-DOA auction) on eBay would be a good option too.

[AGGRO]

I've used a one hundred foot data cable before and just stuffed it under the molding.

[the86d]

I personally have never used a WiFi extender, as that is an extra hop, and could keep latency higher. Alternatively you could put one router on one side of the house, and find a way (run a wire, or use MoCA to add another drop?) to drop another on the other end of the house. Do you have Coax pre-run in the home, so you could drop another router in the other end, disable DHCP on the secondary, plug it into the LAN port on second router (and put them on different channels, same SSID and passphrase)?:

https://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Ethernet-Adapter-without-Routers/dp/B008EQ4BQG?th=1

[SonofWWIIDI]

[Brutmor]

https://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Bonded-Ethernet-Adapter-ECB6200K02/dp/B013J7O3X0

These are ethernet to coaxial bridges. I'm using it to bridge two wireless access points on opposite ends of my house.

[gdr_11]

I am going to try the powerline adapter route. I found new Linksys adapter sets for $25 on eBay and will order these and give a report when I have them up and running. Since I dont have a coax connection in my office, this seems to be the best route and looks like a good bang for the buck.

Thanks for all of the info

[twotacocombo]

We tried the powerline route, and it didn't end well. As soon as I'd fire up something with a motor, like the vacuum or treadmill, it crushed the connection. After about a year of trying this and that, I wound up going with my own personal cable modem, a Motorola SB6141, and a Buffalo WZR-600DHP router/wifi AP. The Buffalo runs 2.4ghz and 5ghz. Moving to 5ghz was the single best thing to improve signal quality, as none of my neighbors have anything in that range. Every room except the furthest one from the router has great signal, and we took care of that with a cheap TP-link AP configured as a wireless bridge.

[6foot8]

If you got one of these you could "light up" any area of your house.

http://www.frys.com/product/8688500?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

the unit without the antennas gets plugged in near your router and connected to a port on the router.

The device with the antennas gets plugged in anywhere in your house you want signal. The devices find and synch themselves across the powerlines to run your network traffic. I've used something like these a couple times in a business (production) setting and it's worked great.