Mesh Network

[stevem5000]

I need to expand my WiFi in the house.....
I have a Linksys WRT3200acm that works well....

The router is at the far end of the house.....moving it to a more central location is not possible....
Signal at the other end of the house is pretty weak....

I need a way to expand my WiFi, so will a mesh router.....say the Nighthawk series connect to my
Linksys router and use the same WiFi network name be a solution...???

If not what are your suggestions....???

Many thanks...
Steve
Win 11 Pro

 

[Taliseian]

We have a TP-Link W7200 Mesh system with two units using T-Mobile Home Internet. The first one is hardwired to the TMHI (the other port has my QNAP NAS) and the other is on the other side of the house. The signal is good all over and it has helped the far side stay online with better speeds.

 

[glasskuter]

I have no experience with a mesh network but I do not think that Linksys WRT3200acm is a mesh router.

Rather than buy mesh equipment, I chose to set up a second old router I had as an access point. This requires connecting router #1 (gateway router) to router #2 using an ethernet cable. Luckily, that was already present in my attic. With an access point , I have better wireless coverage without losing half my bandwidth as one would get if he either purchased wireless repeaters or set up a second router as a wireless repeater.

Many routers can be converted to an access point simply using a switch on the side of the router. In others, it's in the router settings. There are many tutorials on the web about connecting two routers with one of them in access point mode. Most router manuals also tell you how. Router features like DHCP and port forwarding should be disabled in the second router while in AP mode which forces those functions to be handled by the gateway router

Granted, using an access point does not give me the same "roaming" capability as a mesh system would, but I wasn't interested in that. All I wanted was to have rock solid wireless access anywhere in my house and out into my back yard. I have that and didn't have to spend a dime.

 

[siliconbeaver]

Try powerline. either NetGear or TP-Link should be fine.
in my practice, it's pretty good.

 

[PCUser]

ASUS has great mesh router setups. Plus, their routers have a nice built-in AIProtection by Trend micro. This protection helps block botnet attacks and protect you and your network from known bad / malware sites, etc.

Some of them may be purchased in pairs on Amazon. These pairs work together to create a mesh network and you may add additional ASUS router mesh devices to extend and expand your network.

A friend of mine bought one of their earlier mesh routers. It's still fast and trouble free and he loves it.

I've been a loyal ASUS router user for years. Though I don't use their mesh routers yet, I love their routers.
Once you buy an ASUS router with mesh technology, it may be expanded easily and seamlessly with other ASUS routers as long as they have the mesh technology.

My friend uses this model: ASUS AC2900 WiFi Gaming Router (RT-AC86U) - Dual Band Gigabit Wireless Internet Router, WTFast Game Accelerator, Streaming, AiMesh Compatible, Included Lifetime Internet Security, Adaptive QoS

Amazon.com

 

[badrobot]

Yea, it should work. I did the same on mine. I added 5 units (TP-Link Deco) of meah units on my ISP provided modem to get rid of dead spots at hone.

 

[stevem5000]

Glasskutter.....
Since I have an ethernet cable going from the Linksys to the other end of the house......Your idea seems to be the best in my situation.....
I will have to purchase another router.....I would use the new router as the gateway and my current Linksys as the remote router....
I have always used Linksys routers But "PCUser" I will look into Asus routers....

Thanks for your ideas everyone...
Steve

 

[glasskuter]

A few tips of things I discovered when setting up mine.

Configure the AP router settings with it being connected directly to one of your computers. Do not connect AP router to gateway until it is configured.

Router features like DHCP, parental control, and port forwarding should be disabled in second AP router.

Regarding ip address of AP router, I chose to assign a static address rather than letting gateway router assign a dynamic one. This way I always know it's ip and can access its settings from any computer on my network.
To do this, AP router should be assigned a static ip address that is not being used within the ip range of gateway router.
(example: In my case gateway router has an ip of 192.168.0.1, AP router assigned static ip of 192.168.0.2 )

On the AP router, change the wireless channel so that it is different from your primary channel. By using a different channel on the secondary and primary routers, you can reduce interference on your network. The three channels that don't overlap at all are 1, 6 and 11. It's ideal to have the primary take one of those channels and the secondary another.

Once AP router is configured, Connect one end of an Ethernet cable to one of the LAN ports of your AP router and the other end to a LAN port on your main existing router. Its a good idea to cover up the blue internet port on the AP router.

Yes, an AP can be configured with the same wireless SSID and password as the Gateway, but you won't know which of the routers is providing your signal, and it may not matter to you. For my own reasons, I configured my AP with a different SSID.

I also restarted all my devices after I set everything up and changed wireless setting on those devices I wanted to access through the AP rather than the gateway.

 

[hdmi]

I got the Asus RT-AX92U (2 Pack) mesh system in summer of 2021. It's rock solid IME. When set up in wired backhaul configuration, despite it having only two nodes (why it's called 2 Pack), the performance, signal stability, coverage and range are similar if not better compared to mesh systems from the "competing" (between quotes, as they can't compete at all really...) brands that use a base station plus two or maybe even three satellites so three or maybe even four units in total, and the latter systems turned out to be very often significantly more costly and/or slower-performing, less feature-rich, offering poorer flexibility options.

The Asus actually even has the ability to operate in AP mode without sacrificing its mesh function.

It means that it gives the option to set it up in such a way that its primary node functions as an AP in lieu of a router while its capability to let Wi-Fi devices roam smoothly between the primary and secondary nodes is left intact. So if you, like me, want to hook up a separate router between your cable modem and the mesh system, then you can decide to just put the mesh system in AP mode. Whereas a mesh system from a different brand typically would force you to choose between either being behind two routers (a separate one and the one that's built-in into the base station of the mesh system) or giving up the idea of adding a separate router altogether.

A common "complaint" about the RT-AX92U is that it isn't truly tri-band. However, using the wired backhaul configuration option causes the 2 Pack's backhaul to NOT share wireless bandwidth with Wi-Fi devices that connect to this mesh system. It means that the full bandwidth is available on this AX6100 mesh system. Thereby gving me Wi-Fi 6 speeds up and above 950 Mbit/s pretty much everywhere inside the house. That's nearly as fast as a Gigabit Ethernet wired connection. At just 279 Euros with free shipping 3.5 years ago.