Wireless Extender tech specs (or which one would work...)

It's interesting to see the evolution of technology.  Wi-fi speeds have really shot up in the past few years, to the point that my aging Apple system does not pass muster anymore (it's a Airplay Extreme with an Airplay express as an extension).

And the base station I get from comcast is pretty good, it seems.

Given I have an old house, I have two options- one is an A/C wire set up- but that's got some major issues based on how my house is wired- the signal would have to go out to a 200A box, back to my house to the original 100A box, and through the original '20's era wiring in my home.  Which is a long way of saying that I really don't think it will work.  (and the age of my home makes it a PITA to run new wire)

The option that I see working is buying a new wi-fi extender set up, and use the original box that xfinity provided as the base station.

Pretty much every extender you can get can go way faster than the service I can pay for, so if I were working in an empty room, it would be easy.  But I'm working with an old home, plaster and lath, metal forced air lines, plumbing, some appliances, ect- all of which really does a number on the wi-fi signal.  It's really hard to figure which extender I should get with the signal reducers I have.  It seems that the AC1200-1300 boxes should all work, for a little more money, one can get a little faster, and for a lot more money (like $120 or more), you get get a LOT faster.  But I can't really tell if faster is also farther/through more walls or not.

Anyone have any suggestions to read the tech details to see if one extender would work better than another?

You'll be lucky to get 50% of the rated speed of the wifi base station or extender.  Those ratings are based on ideal conditions (much like mileage numbers for new cars, but I digress). and if you have older devices that aren't at least using Wireless-N and 5GHz signals, you should plan on updating them or adding new network cards to them.

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/how-to/network-wifi/how-improve-wi-fi-in-home-wi-fi-extenders-vs-powerline-vs-mesh-3593058/

Using an extender tends to halve that speed even more due to the way they work.  I'd avoid it and go with a Mesh network.

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/network-wifi/best-mesh-wi-fi-network-kits-3661110/

I've seen some interesting ways of running network cable, by running it behind molding via a daedo cut on the backside, running them in the walls isn't terribly difficult if you already have cable TV run to any of the rooms as you can follow its path and add a network port to the cable plate, etc.

^Mostly good points, except mesh wifi isn't necessarily better than an extender in terms of bandwidth. You either have to wire them up, or connect them wirelessly and suffer the bandwidth being cut in half, just as with a multi-AP or traditional extender setup.

The more expensive or faster boxes will not necessarily work through more walls either, that has more to do with antenna gain.

If there's any way you can run some proper 10gig rated Cat6A cable, that would be ideal, and that cable will be useful for a long time to come.

I know the wire is the best way of doing it, but it’s really not a option. 

And I can actually accept a half speed drop if I can get the 100mb main service. 

Im more concerned about signal strength most in terms of a extender (or system). 

In that case, just get something with 802.11ac and high-gain external antennas. "Mesh" systems are the easy but dumbed-down way to use modes you can get on a good regular router, but most people don't know about or have too much difficulty setting up. They also cost more. If you're looking to add lots of range around the house they might not be a bad idea. If you're only looking to add one or two APs, I'd say you should just get extenders. An extender's functionality is also a subset of that of a good regular router.

What I do for wifi is a great value but it's relatively difficult. I buy upper-mid-range regular routers and reflash them with OpenWRT to do whatever I want. At home I have a multi-AP network wired together. I run the cables in white plastic conduit channels outside the house, they're not too noticeable. I've set up extender networks for other people using reflashed regular routers - DD-WRT can also do the job and is easier, but isn't as extensible as OpenWRT.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

What in the specifications would indicate a high-gain antenna?  

One sale service person just told me that if it had an external antenna, that would be a big step up- but I was not too keen on that question.  All the other tech people spoke more of generalities- like the wifi base is good to 150m indoors, and place the router within 30 ft of the base, etc.  If the first was factual, I would not need the extender.  And if the second was factual, all I would need was a cheap sub AC1000, since I can't even buy service that fast- so what's the point of having so many options if you can't tell them apart.

It's disappointing that tech sales can't tell you how to shop for their own products on simple, technical basis, other than the speed of the base unit.  And that's why I'm posting here.

When faced with my situation, how do I buy the most effective router?  Does the extra speed/cost actually gain anything that is important?  Do walls and materials in my home matter?  etc.  

Walls and materials in the home matter very much. I once visited a limestone house that killed radio signals dead. They had to keep their wifi router on the front patio to get a signal in the widest area - which was the patio, courtyard, and a little in the nearest room.

Most tech sales guys are no different to auto sales guys other than how much they take home. 150m indoors is a fantasy, you couldn't get that much range in a traditional Japanese house with paper walls. In a typical North American house with brick outer walls and wood/plaster inner walls, you'll get more like 10~15m indoors with a typical cheapo router.

It is a good rule of thumb that you'll get better range with external antennas, internal antennas tend to be average at best. High-gain, as a ballpark figure, is 12dbi+ - these are the extra long fancy antennas you see for sale.

More speed doesn't mean better range, those are two different factors. Range is mostly about antenna gain and transmission power, which you can sometimes increase with the "aftermarket" firmwares like DD-WRT or OpenWRT. Generally all routers you can buy off the shelf are going to have the regulation level of transmission power.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

And you point out the major problem when dealing with reality- people need to buy these items to get around structures, not really for speed.  

I just got the Milo Wi-Fi system at my house and it works great.  Can't speak to the technical side of things but, I can now stream television upstairs.

It seems to be fast and it was easy to setup.

<threadjack>

What's everyone's preferred brand of routers to put OpenWRT on? 

I believe my old Buffalo (shipped with DD-WRT!) is finally dying since I have to restart it about once a week or it starts to drops packets like mad.  And when it was really cold out last week, the cheap-o netgear I was using in the garage as a range extender wouldn't work.  It did last night, but that doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies about its' future service.

I was planning on buying a new router a new range extender/router to hook up via the powerline  adapters I use to get a connection in the garage. 

I've been quite happy with the Buffalo products (I have a lot since I switched from Linksys years ago), but I'm open to other suggestions.

Yeah Buffalo is pretty good, I have Buffalo 802.11n routers at home right now. Linksys and TP-Link are good in terms of hardware quality, just be aware that some of the recent TP-Link routers are difficult to reflash.

I use these:

Antennae on teh smiles...

with some coax adapters to get to reflashed Linksys routers.  Also note that Ubiquiti makes some stuff that will do what you want and is plug-n-play.

Dr. Hess said:

I use these:

Antennae on teh smiles...

 

with some coax adapters to get to reflashed Linksys routers.  Also note that Ubiquiti makes some stuff that will do what you want and is plug-n-play.

Wow, those look something.  Maybe I need to look into the routers I have stashed away from old trials to see if I can update them to be far more powerful.  Both for a base station and a repeater.  hmmm....  

And based on their shape, I can hide them under counters.

Since some of you have good sites, can you save some googlefoo time and suggest some websites to learn about OpenWRT?  Something I can at least look into.

Keep in mind those are directional antennas, great for going long distances between buildings, but not so great for general house coverage (unless your house is very long and skinny?).

Here's a good intro to OpenWRT:

http://ruxmon.com/assets/Uploads/OpenWRT-RuxMon-Brisbane.pdf

Yeah, I use those antennas to link the house and the shop together.  It's a little over 50 yards and one side is inside the house.