Signal Strength or Max Rate?

[mmcpher]

I have a Verizon Fios package with good download/upload speeds. But it is limited on the wifi end, of course, by the Actiontec Router from Fios, and by the construction and configuration of my home. So I went out and bought an Asus AC 66UU-RT dual range router. And I have a WET610N coupled to a WAP610N, both from Cisco, so I can increase that I extend the faster ASUS speeds through the WAPWET on the lower floors. It all works if you can get it to play nice. I have much higher max rate numbers on inSSIDer -- 450 for the Asus, 140 for the WAPWET, as compared to 130 for the original Actiontec, and the Asus signal is stronger and travels further than the Actiontec.

I'd read that 2.4GHz channels are best for home networks, so I have all of these devices on 2.4 channels -- the Asus router on 1 and the WAPWET on 11(the Actiontec wifi is turned off).


I have a few questions, some of which are likely based on a misunderstanding of how this stuff works. Your patience and patience are appreciated:

1) Is it best to keep the Asus router and the WAPWET repeater on different channels, or should they be on the same one?

2) inSSIDer shows fairly heavy wifi traffic on all of the 2.4 GHz channels, whereas there is no apparent traffic on the 5 GHz channels -- should I switch it all over to 5 GHz (assuming that all or most of my wifi devices will be able to connect)?

3) What is more important, signal strength or max rate?

4) if I have my devices wifi settings to allow access point handover, does that mean the device will automatically choose and switch to the stronger signal?

5) will a signal-strength-based handover occur even where the max rate on the marginally lower signal strength router has a much, much higher max rate?

6) Assuming max rate counts a lot, is the repeater worth it, and if not, is there some repeater on the market that would retain more of the Asus max rate?

 

[thiggins]

I'd read that 2.4GHz channels are best for home networks, so I have all of these devices on 2.4 channels -- the Asus router on 1 and the WAPWET on 11(the Actiontec wifi is turned off).

2.4 GHz will have a wider reach than 5 GHz. But 5 GHz will be less crowded. The channel that is "best" depends on your situation.

1) Is it best to keep the Asus router and the WAPWET repeater on different channels, or should they be on the same one?

Repeaters must be on the same channel because of the way they work.

2) inSSIDer shows fairly heavy wifi traffic on all of the 2.4 GHz channels, whereas there is no apparent traffic on the 5 GHz channels -- should I switch it all over to 5 GHz (assuming that all or most of my wifi devices will be able to connect)?

You can try this. But note that you will have reduced range on 5 GHz.

What matters most is how much the channels are used. The only way you can tell, aside from packet sniffing, is to try a channel and see if you get frequent disconnects or low throughput.

3) What is more important, signal strength or max rate?

What matters is throughput, which you can determine only by measuring. (see How Fast Is Your Network? Five Ways To Measure Network Speed). That said, stronger signals usually yield higher throughput.

4) if I have my devices wifi settings to allow access point handover, does that mean the device will automatically choose and switch to the stronger signal?

Not necessarily. Consumer client devices are pretty "sticky", meaning they will hold onto the first network they see until they can't.

5) will a signal-strength-based handover occur even where the max rate on the marginally lower signal strength router has a much, much higher max rate?

See above. If your adapter has roaming settings, you can try playing with them. An High "aggressive" roaming setting, like Intel adapters have would the the one to play with.

6) Assuming max rate counts a lot, is the repeater worth it, and if not, is there some repeater on the market that would retain more of the Asus max rate?

See the Wireless Repeaters / Range Extenders section of The Best Way To Get Whole House Wireless Coverage

 

[mmcpher]

Tim, thanks for the extremely helpful response! It certainly answers most of my questions, gives me a few tweaks that I absolutely need to make, and a few other suggestions to explore.

It is hard to hard-wire this network, because it is a brick house and there is no good access through floors, ceiling, etc.

I do have one other pc, several rooms away from the main set-up, ethernet-wired through the LAN port of the primary router, so it is like having 2 pc's accessing the internet without havig to use wifi. I might instead put the WAPWET there. I would lose the second hard-wired connection, but it might really improve coverage. If I could try that 20 to 40 doubling trick it might be a keeper, but I'm not sure I can.

Thanks again!

 

[stevech]

...
I do have one other pc, several rooms away from the main set-up, ethernet-wired through the LAN port of the primary router, so it is like having 2 pc's accessing the internet without havig to use wifi. I might instead put the WAPWET there. I would lose the second hard-wired connection, but it might really improve coverage.
Thanks again!

You may know: Put a simple ethernet switch at the PC several rooms away - and now you'll have all the LAN connection ports you need. One port can connect to a WiFi access point (or a WiFI router re-purposed as an AP).

 

[mmcpher]

You may know: Put a simple ethernet switch at the PC several rooms away - and now you'll have all the LAN connection ports you need. One port can connect to a WiFi access point (or a WiFI router re-purposed as an AP).

I have one of these already with an open port! I use it to run the ehternet to the 2nd pc and to a slingbox. So maybe I could add another access point/repurposed router (I have an e4200 and a Netgear dual band sitting around somewhere.

 

[mmcpher]

It seems to be working better, with everything on channel 1. But the coverage with the new Asus router has improved to the point where I might be tempted to try 5 GHz if its spotty. As I said above, I have a second pc hardwired from the Lan port of the Asus but it passes through a Netgear FS105 switch and I also run a slingbox through that switch. When I rebooted the slingbox it stole the IP address from the WAPWET! But I should be able to redo all that. My other question is would a newer, gigabyte Netgear switch improve performance? As it it, the old 10/100 FS105 switch produces the same speedtest results on the second pc as the the pc hardwired directly to the Actiontec/Asus. So it doesn't seem necessary there, but maybe the Slingbox would do better? The Actiontec and Asus both call themselves gigabyte routers, but I confess to be out of my depth on it. The gigabyte switch isn't a big expense though.

 

[stevech]

If your client device supports 5.8GHz... go for it.
The disadvantage of 5.8GHz, RF wise, is just 6dB in engineering terms. The total propagation path attenuation, WiFi router to, and from, the client is like 80dB or more. So the 6dB or so penalty of 5.8Ghz relative to 2.4GHz is, in the overall, rather small - that is, the ratio of 6dB to, say, 80dB.