Two Wireless Routers on two floors of a 3 Story House?

[ATB]

Will the signals interfere with one another or just boost one another?

Basically the set up would be


2nd floor. Can get a pretty good signal from the mainfloor router in most places

Main floor: Modem to  Linksys Router

Basement (planned) :

Main internet line from Linksys to Network Jack. Cable from jack to cisco switch.  Cable from cisco switch to router number two.


Or is the whole thing superfluous and the one router should cover it all?

Thanks, homeys!

[Harkonis]

put them on separate channels

[KC]

You may want to look into wifi range extenders instead.

[ATB]

put them on separate channels

I have no idea what this means

[Roman]

in the configuration GUI (192.168.1.1)for your router(s) there is a channel selector as to which channel is broadcasting the signal. Make sure that each router (if you go that route) is using its own channel.

[ATB]

I decided to run hardline.

Thanks everyone.

this will allow me to piggy back off the cat 5 for phone lines too.

[Roman]

good plan.

[CeeKay]

Nice network name.

[Roman]

too funny CeeKay - I never noticed that before - I just grabbed whatever image looked best from google.

[Calavera]

Something else to try if someone comes searching. This is what worked for me.

High-gain antennas. Depending on your router, you can replace the stock antennas (typically 2dbi or less) with high-gain ones. Personally, I use an 8dbi gain antenna from TP-link (TL-ANT2408C). A pair will run you about $30. The antenna is massive, though, at about a foot tall. Higher gain antennas are available if you need them, but you'll start moving into outdoor equipment instead.

High-power routers. I use the Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N High Power router for wireless. I chose it over the WZR-HP-G300N because of the replaceable antenna. This unit can do 30dbm (1W) or TX power. A WRT54G does a max of 271mW (around 24.5dbm), but the max with its stock firmware is around 71mW (around 18.5dbm). There are various options that aren't enabled by default that increase range and stability at the expense of speed.

With this combo I can get 54mbit G and 300mbit N pretty much everywhere in the house and it covers the yard with usable wireless (36 mbit close to the house trailing to about 11mbit at the end of the driveway/end of the backyard). Where I'm at, channel 11 is strangely empty so the TX power is running at 13dbm (20mW), but when I had it setup for Channel 6 it would run at 21dbm (126mW) to get the same result. I manually boosted the power to 27dbm (500mW) as a test and could still get a decent wireless signal at the far edge of my neighbors yard about 250 foot away from the router and my house has Low-E glass in the windows.