Extending an AC Network

JoeFig44

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Oct 23, 2012
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I need to setup a network in a 3000sq ft house that also has a 3000sq ft finished basement. It's a big bungalow.

Thinking I will go with an Asus ac1750 router connected to my modem in one top corner of the house ( no choice on location due to where Internet comes into the house at the office room)

I cannot run Ethernet cabling from this room anywhere, but yet need to ensure I have sufficient speed at two separate TV locations to sustain smooth 1080p playback, and at one of those locations, to support online console gaming).
This would ideally be achieved by using another router or extender with multiple ports so I can hook up multiple non wireless devices behind each tv (albeit, some may have sufficient wireless capability on their own).

While one of these locations is located mid-house on top floor and this closer to the main ac router, the other is the opposite corner of the house and on the floor below (basement home theatre with smart tv, ps4, sonos connect, etc). So that would be 70ft away.

Then I need general wireless for mainly ipad/iPhones throughout the house and ideally in the backyard too.

So if I go with the asus ac1750 router as main, what other devices are best I could use to extend ac speeds to the two tv locations?

One of the tv locations might only need n speeds, so wondering if I could use my existing apple extreme base station dual and n router as an extender with Ethernet ports there, and use whatever ac device you suggest for faster speeds at the second tv location, so I can game online there.

Or is it more cost effective if I just go get multiple wireless n extenders and continue to use my apple dual band router?

 
How much bandwidth do you actually think you need. Unless you do silly things like stream uncompressed video even a single channel 56m 802.11n setup will be more than sufficient.

Network extenders and 802.11ac is almost a contraindication. 802.11ac only runs on the 5g band which already has far less range inside the house the 2.4. You would be much better when you have range issue using 2.4 to extend. To get the really high speed connection both for 802.11ac and for 802.11n they transmit multiple streams over the top of each other, repeaters in theory can do this but now you are transmitting 2 times 3 streams of data. It has enough trouble getting a single stream repeated much less mimo.

All this matters only if you are streaming video totally INSIDE your house. You are limited by you ISP to much less speed that wireless can run if you are getting your video from the internet

Even discussing gaming and wireless bandwidth is a huge misconception a lot of people have. Gaming only need a very small amount of bandwidth what it needs is very very clean bandwidth. Almost all the problems people see playing games on wireless are related to packet loss and retransmission due to interference. No matter what you do you always run the risk of random interference in wireless. This is why it is recommended you do not play games on even the best wireless systems.

G