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Connecting multiple ethernet connections to wifi

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Calab

New Around Here
The second floor of my home has no ethernet jacks nor any way to install cabling. I have several devices in my second floor office that I want to connect to my network. A couple have 802.11b or g connectivity, but most only have ethernet jacks.

Also, while Windows is pretty easy to find a USB wifi adapter, it can be difficult to find one that operates well in Linux or OSX. Just using the ethernet ports would be much simpler.

I noticed that most wifi extenders have an ethernet jack on them. Could I place one of these in my office, and connect its ethernet port to a switch, allowing multiple devices to connect without knowing that they are on wifi?

Some of these extenders offer Router, AP and Repeater modes... which mode is the one I should be looking for in this case?

My wifi consists of my ISP's fibre router, in the basement, offering 802.11 b/g/n (disabled) and a Linksys EA6500 AC1750 router in bridged mode, on the first floor, offering b/g/n/ac.

All suggestions and comments are welcome! Thanks!

<edit>I am considering using a Linksys RE6700 as it will support my AC network and has a gigabit ethernet port. Would this do?</edit>
 
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You want a router that has (media) Bridge mode on it. To connect wirelessly to your main router and with Ethernet cables from it's LAN ports.

I would recommend the RT-AC56U (an older model, but just perfect in this usage). They just simply work, period. :)
 
I have an Asus ac68 router that is in an outbuilding. It connects, via 5g, to another ac68 inside the house, setup in repeater mode. Wireless devices connect to the repeater, 2.4g or 5g. I have Ethernet connections to the repeater from the house garage, upstairs, and from in the front room. All Ethernet connections are done via Netgear EoP devices. House is 15 years old, so modern wiring. We have streamed 4K movies over the EoP connections without issues. My max BW is 10M so I can’t afford to lose much while streaming, but it has worked well.
 
Something I hadn't considered user are powerline adapters. How reliable are they, especially when compared to wifi?
 
It depends is the real question. Sometimes powerline is awesome...sometimes it isn't...just like WiFi. You really have to test it out to see how it works in your specific environment.

At my house, I used to have a wireless bridge for a similar reason as you. My WiFi bridge was plenty fast (250Mbps+), but it required a reboot every week or two...and eventually almost daily. I had a powerline setup prior to the WiFi bridge that was rock solid stable, but too slow (20-30Mbps) for my liking. Now, this powerline adapter was an older model (I think it was a 200Mbps rated one??) and I never did put the money into buying the ones rated for higher speeds. I ended up moving equipment around and no longer needing Ethernet ports on the upper floor of my house.
 
Here are the ones I have. Much older model that Netgear doesn’t sell anymore. I don’t use the encryption (push a button). I have three of these and one that is multiple Ethernet. The multi is by the TV and handles the SmartTV, BluRay, AppleTV, Dish Hopper3, and Pioneer surround sound tuner. Like I said, I only have 10M DL and these are supposedly rated at 200M, so plenty of capability. The newer ones may do better.

NETGEAR XAVB101 Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter Kit NETGEAR https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001AGM2VI/?tag=snbforums-20
 
@Calab:
Powerline adapters are a total mixed bag. They may work; they may not. They may work initially, but then not at certain times, or may degrade randomly over time. Bottom line: operational certainty is low overall, which makes them hard to recommend as a universal solution. So if you can avoid in favor of other technologies, I would do so.

Besides hard-wiring (always the optimal choice), as @L&LD and @MichaelCG mentioned, the next best fit would probably be a wireless client bridge: basically an access point with a switch, that connects itself to a pre-existing wireless network, then bridges the switch to that wireless connection, as if it were a "wireless wire". This functionality is offered by a good amount of APs and routers.

Since you have Broadcom-based wifi already (Linksys EA6500), I would also recommend a Broadcom-based client bridge with matching spatial streams (3x3) in both bands, for maximum throughput and link stability. You may just want to by a second EA6500, which does offer a client bridge mode. Otherwise the 50% cheaper EA6300, which still has 3x3 5Ghz, albeit only 2x2 2Ghz, should also work well enough.
 

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