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I'm on Spectrum 200mb connection and am looking for a good router and modem, seperate. I need something that's going to give me a really good range. This will be on the floor in a downstairs, but I need the range to reach upstairs into a kitchen. My setup now only gives me like 1 to 2 bars on a laptop in the kitchen. That's with an extender. I really need something better than that because my mom is disabled and streams things from that laptop. I don't really know a whole lot about networking, it's the area that gives me the most trouble probably. Any help would be appreciated.

Depends on budget and a lot of other things.

Router perhaps an Asus RT-AC68U or RT-AC86U.

Modems, usually provided by the ISP. Motorola got bought out ARRIS.

Look at small net builder website for in depth networking stuff.

A wireless mesh router setup (like Netgear Orbi) may be your best bet.

just brew it! wrote:

A wireless mesh router setup (like Netgear Orbi) may be your best bet.

A couple of those Asus routers can do their "AiMesh" as well to help with the range.

Flying Fox wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

A wireless mesh router setup (like Netgear Orbi) may be your best bet.

A couple of those Asus routers can do their "AiMesh" as well to help with the range.

Reviews for those Asus routers all have complaints about 2.5 connection that's apparently notorious with the routers.

My RT-AC3100 has been rock solid. Have no need to use AI-Mesh, though.

toki wrote:

Reviews for those Asus routers all have complaints about 2.5 connection that's apparently notorious with the routers.

You want the routers to support 2.5gig networking too? To me, unless you are moving beyond consumer, you will be able to find issues with almost all of them. Asus, Netgear, D-link, Linksys, if not for "overheating" chips, or it would be stock firmware support, FOSS firmware support, or some other random stuff.

I was also thinking about dd-wrt, but I don't know if that would be a good idea, or maybe try something else, or stick with stock firmware.

Asus routers have an alternative to DD-WRT called Asuswrt-Merlin. It's "a third party alternative firmware for Asus routers, with a special emphasis on tweaks and fixes rather than radical changes or collecting as many features as possible."
https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/

Modem -- Something like the Arris Surfboard 6190:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/arris-surf ... lsrc=aw.ds

AP -- Ubiquiti Unifi LongRange (LR):
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... gJLu_D_BwE

The AP will be a slight stretch for someone who isn't familiar with networking but if you can install the configuration utility on your computer or phone, it's a good learning exercise since the graphical stuff is fairly easy to follow and the advanced stuff can mostly be left at defaults.

There are several good router available on Amazona and Bestbuy that cover nearly 15 meter range. Although D-link will be good choise.