So, I could use a little help/advice with my internet. Current service is ATT and we're being forced to switch from phone line based service to an over the air broadcast based service. Not a big issue, but now I'm forced to have my router on the upper floor of my house instead of the basement where all my electronics are (man cave). So basically I need a recommendation for a good wifi booster/extender. Preferably with the capability of plugging in an ether net cable for my non wifi desktop.


I could get by with what I have, but I don't have cable and the PC is my TV source. If no reasonable work around is available, I guess I'll be looking to switch ISPs.

Every once in a while, WOOT! has a sale on NetGear MESH systems. One of those will meet your requirements and give you great coverage at avery reasonable cost. I have one, and it's great.

What speed internet will you be getting?

Do you have any type of wiring going from where the new modem will be to the basement where the electronics are? Could be coax cable for the TV or Ethernet cable used as phone line. If not, can you run or have run a wire from the new location to the basement electronics area?

I just went on the ATT Air internet due to no fiber cable available. I am getting 450 mps but I am in a single story home. Consider putting the router on the highest floor toward the nearest cell tower which the system will tell you what direction. So far, I am really happy although I can't get the 1 gig of internet.

It is currently placed on highest floor of split level home, nearest to the closest tower. That is part of my ißue I believe, as that basically puts it on the other end of the house 2 floors up from my TV.
I have a phone line in basement, but it's again on the wrong end of the house and comes thru the wall direct from the box outside. No help in pulling new wire.
VTail, I will look into woot to see whats on sale.

Thank you.

If you have coax cable run in both areas, you could use that with MoCA adapters to run up to a 2.5gbps Ethernet connection between the two locations. Two of these would be about $120 for the pair and be basically plug and play.

Recommending a wireless solution really requires knowing how fast your internet service is.

I have a 500mbps plan and I using the Ookla Speedtest app on my iPhone says I’m getting 590mbps download 15’ from my WAP. Setting up a mesh network capable of that would require about $500-$700 worth of equipment. It gets worse if you have 500mbps symmetrical service, where download and upload speeds are 500mbps each. My upload is only 23mbps, so I can get away with what I have.

An over-the-air trunk will never achieve the bandwidth and reliability of a "wire," either twisted pair, co-ax, or fiber. If at all possible, try to string a wire between your ISP's POP (Internet Service Provider's Point Of Presence) to your desired local distribution facility.

Often, this is most effectively done by routing the wire on the exterior of a home.

Optical fiber provides tangible benefits to capacity and interference (lightning), but consumer-oriented equipment still do not provide fiber interfaces.

IMO, a radio connection (WiFi, etc.) should be the last consideration (although many have made this work).

Netgear has an 8 port switch with a SFP+ port for $90. It would be great for running fiber to an outbuilding where lightning would be a potential problem for copper wire.

Somewhere between 75 and 225 mbps according to cnet article I found. I have never done a speed test on any internet I've had. Never felt the need, but it was always a wired connection to my PC since I've had dial up. I guess I need to check this one out.

Any good ap for that? Android if it matters . Found the Ookla ap you mentioned. Test will have to wait til I get home tonight, though.

The website is speedtest.net if you want to try it on your computer.

Let's go with your high number: 225mbps. As long as every part of your network is at least that fast, then every device on your network should see that speed. A wired 1000mbps ethernet connection easily handles that. Whether or not your WiFi router can depends.

When you get the new internet installed, I'd run the speedtest app on your phone while you are in the same room as your existing WiFi router. I'd also use a laptop with an ethernet connection connected with a patchcord from the the laptop to an ethernet port on the WiFi router and use your laptops internet browser to run a speedtest at speedtest.net. If the two test are the same, great. If not, I'd figure out if your WiFi router or phone is the bottleneck.

Assuming the two speedtests are close, I'd next run the speedtest app on your phone in the man cave in the basement. 50mbps should be enough to stream 4k movies well. If you are getting that and you have no need for a faster internet connection to the computer in the man cave, great! If you download movies, games, updates and want to use the full speed coming into your house or you aren't getting at least enough speed to stream movies, then you have to make some changes.

If you ever had cable TV and there's coax from that on the upper floor and in the basement, you can use that to make am ethernet connection between the WiFi router on the upper floor and the computer in the basement man cave.

If not and you are dead set agaiunning are cable (copper wire or fiber optic), then you need a wireless solution.

If, back at the end of my second paragraph, your WiFi router is not your bottleneck, then using a WiFi extender with you existing router might work. Take your phone to the first floor somewhere halfway between the upper floor equipment and the basement man cave and see what you get for a speetest on your phone, divide that number by 2, and that's what you can expect to see in the basement man cave. For example, if your first floor speed test says 100mbps, you can expect 50mbps in the basement man cave. A WiFi extender can only transmit or receive. Say you are streaming a movie, the data goes from your WiFi router to the WiFi extender at 100mbps. At somepoint, the WiFi extender has to stop receiving the data so it can transmit what it has already received to your device. If that also happens at 100mbps, your device will only receive 50mbps of data because the WiFi extender is receiving half of the time and transmitting the other half of the time.

If, back at the end of my second paragraph, your WiFi router is your bottleneck or you don't mind spending a bit more money than a WiFi extender would cost, then there is a solution: a triband mesh setup like the Asus 8XT on Amazon for $260, Link. A triband router has three radios. Two are the usual 2.4ghz and 5ghz bands used to connect your devices to your network. The third one is used as a dedicated connection between the WiFi router and a wireless access point. Because the WAP in this case is using one radio to communicate with your device and a second radio to communicate with your WiFi router. It receives date from the WiFi router and transmits that data to your device at the same time.

I'm sorry that's a lot of words. I tried to leave out as much of the tedious details as I could. I'm also assuming you don't have kids, you aren't running a bunch of wireless security cameras, you aren't streaming to 5 devices at once, etc.