I’m switching from a ~150 Mbps cable connection to 900 Mbps fiber and trying to figure out whether I need to budget for more WiFi hardware too.
Three-story house. Router has to stay on the ground floor because that’s where the incoming line is.
Right now I get basically full speed downstairs, around 30–40 Mbps on the middle floor, and the top floor ranges from 5–10 Mbps to basically nothing depending on where I’m standing. The new ISP includes a WiFi 6 router. I don’t need 900 Mbps upstairs. Honestly, if I could get a stable 50–100 Mbps on the top floor I’d be happy.
Is there a realistic chance the newer router alone fixes this, or does a three-story house pretty much mean mesh/APs?
Going from 150 Mbps internet to 900 Mbps internet does not make radio waves better at climbing stairs. If the top floor is basically a dead zone now, I wouldn’t expect the ISP package to magically fix it.
@Mysterious_Bid_20 Yeah, I know the actual broadband speed doesn’t increase WiFi range. I was more hoping the newer WiFi 6 router might have noticeably better coverage than the old ISP box.
Could be somewhat better. I just wouldn’t build the whole plan around “new router = two floors of extra range”.
Before buying a three-pack mesh kit, I’d actually model the house. NetSpot 6 can do multi-floor planning. Put all three floors into one building project, place the router where it really has to stay, then try adding one AP on the middle floor and compare that with two APs. At least then you’ll have some idea whether this is a “one extra AP” problem or a “yeah, this house needs multiple radios” problem. Multi-floor Planning treats them as one building, so you can see the predicted coverage across each floor and between levels. Obviously it’s still a prediction, but it’s a lot more useful than buying three nodes because the box says “whole-home WiFi”.
Do you have any way to get Ethernet to the second or third floor? Because one properly placed wired AP will usually beat trying to relay an already weak wireless signal upstairs.
@Paul.Carlson Not easily. I might be able to get one cable to the middle floor without destroying the house, but top floor would be a pain.
If you can wire the middle floor, I’d seriously consider that. Ground-floor router + wired AP on floor two may already give you enough coverage on floor three. That’s exactly the kind of layout I’d test in the predictive plan before buying anything else.