What is the best solution for internet connection on 3 floors of the house?

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Currently I have a modem and router on the first floor (verizon fios). The wifi range was good enough for the entire 1st floor and decent for the 2nd floor. Now I need to get internet on the 3rd floor. I looked in to a couple of options.

Wifi repeater/booster - I can add a a repeater to the 2nd floor so wifi can reach the 3rd floor. How much bandwidth and latency can we expect to get by using a repeater? Do we need a really high end model for it to work well?

Running a Ethernet cable for a second access point - I can run it up to the 2nd and/or 3rd floor for another access point. I would need alot of cable and it gets messy.

Power-line Ethernet- So apparently how it works is you plug this in to a outlet and connect a Ethernet to it. I never used it before. What are your experiences with powerline? Latency/bandwidth issues? Is there any specifics require for this kind of thing to work?

MoCA (Coaxial) to Ethernet - I actually have coxial cables running through out my house already for cable tv. I also know that they are extremely old if that has any impact. Any experiences with that?

I need some advice with so many options available.
 
Solution
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If it is a good router, I agree with above. Run Ethernet to other floors. Either run Ethernet to 2nd floor and run wireless from a central like location there if you have a pretty good router, or run to 3rd and setup a second router off LAN from the first router to LAN on the second router(disable DHCP, and sent internal LAN IP to the same subnet as the first router)(That way everything is on the same subnet and can see each other, and everything gets addresses from the first router, though you could also just plug the LAN from the first router into the WAN of the second router and be fine that way, but then devices won't see each other).
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Unkk

Unkk

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Apr 20, 2012
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I would run Ethernet cable to the second floor and place your wifi router there. If you have another access point, I'd run cable and have both access points on the second floor at opposite sides of the house.
 
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bill001g

Titan
Aug 9, 2012
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You preferred order should be

Ethernet cables
powerline
moca
.....and then when there is no other option
repeater.

Because you now have 2 radio signals susceptible to interference and the repeater itself is interfering with the main router by design you get a very large amount of bandwidth loss.


Ethernet cable even if it is very hard to get installed once complete will never give you any issues likely for many years.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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Oct 9, 2006
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Good analysis of options.

You can buy 100 foot cat 7 Ethernet cable for $35.
If you can run a cable to the second floor, you should be ok.

Can you replace the router with one with a stronger wifi signal?
Or add a stronger antenna to the current router?
 
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why_wolf

why_wolf

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Aug 28, 2015
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I agree with everyone else run the Ethernet cable it will give you the best most stable results. Do you own this house? If so you might want to consider getting handy and running the cable through the walls, annoying yes but a nice extra feature for the house.
 
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DeadlyDays

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Mar 29, 2013
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If it is a good router, I agree with above. Run Ethernet to other floors. Either run Ethernet to 2nd floor and run wireless from a central like location there if you have a pretty good router, or run to 3rd and setup a second router off LAN from the first router to LAN on the second router(disable DHCP, and sent internal LAN IP to the same subnet as the first router)(That way everything is on the same subnet and can see each other, and everything gets addresses from the first router, though you could also just plug the LAN from the first router into the WAN of the second router and be fine that way, but then devices won't see each other).
 
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