Now TV. Recommend low cost router.

I have just changed to Now TV 36mb. The router is poor. I have wasted a lot of time trying out various things. My laptop is in another room about 10 meters away with no major walls between & the signal drops to between 1mb & 15mb. I bought a Netgear N300 Wi Fi Range Extender. The problem is once the Netgear N300 is moved even 5 meters from the Now box the signal from the Now box lowers to (around 15 mb) & the extender gives the same lower speed. If I place the extender near the router so it can pick up the full 36mb, the signal the Netgear N300 puts out in the 10 meters to my laptop also drops. It is only a little better than the router. Now what I need is the cheapest 2 band router that will send me a full or near full 36mb signal to my laptop 10 meters away, or an extender that can do the same. Thanks for any help.

The problem could be you are moving meters away when you should be moving metres.

Was something afoot with my post?

In reply to a post by Overjoyed:

Was something afoot with my post?

Try a dictionary. A meter is not a metre.

I could add that 1mb, (one millibit) is not 1Mbps (one megabit per second). And neither is 1MBps (one megabyte per second).

None of this matters for your post, because we know what you meant. But in many posts on this forum it can matter. Hugely.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 23-Aug-19 00:11:48)

Who is this Huge Lee guy anyway Bob ??

You can have any TWO out of secure, good WiFi and cheap.

ISP provided routers are as you have found out are frequently cheap junk and are either not secure or have rubbish WiFi and often both. I would add that in my opinion and experience WiFi extenders are also a waste of space.

The question is what is your budget for good WiFi, are you willing or able to run network cables and what is the area and it's construction that you wish to cover with a good WiFi signal. Only then can a sensible answer be given.

I would say however the best approach is to design the system to give you the wifi coverage you want and then suck up the price, under the adage buy cheap buy twice, a route you have already gone down with a WiFi extender...

Something like the TP Link VR400 around £60-70 would meet your needs. If you want cheaper then you would either need to buy a lower spec model such as the TP Link W9970 which is only single band Wi-fi and no 802.11ac Wi-fi costing around £30 or buy the vr400 as second hand. TBH you’re going to struggle to find a dual band modem/router for less than £50 (brand new) unless you find a bargain on fleabay.

A huge Lee.

Hi

So both the Now TV router and the N300 Wi-Fi extender are giving similar poor performance, this suggests your issues maybe more environmental. What were you using before Now TV?

I would suggest turning off the extender and seeing if you can improve the signal from the Now TV router. Things like changing the channel it runs on, and raising the height of the router and orientation and position can all make a big difference. Also when you say no major walls in between, note that a major wall to us is going to be different to a major wall for a Wi-Fi signal. For example an insubstantial stud wall may be insulated with foil backed foam boards, a major obstruction to a Wi-Fi signal.

Have you tried using the 5GHz signal, this is often less congested.

Regards

Phil

OK first my thanks to all those that offered information. To the spelling experts please grow up. Meter can be spelt both ways. I am into music & deal with US sites a lot & find myself spelling the American way as a result. Favor for instance, one of many.

When people come onto music sites & mispell, or mistype etc, I just answer their problem & hopefully give them the help they needed, without any sarcasm.

My post explained the problem fully. I do understand sometimes the need to widen the information. I will just say although I am two rooms away I can see the router as a diagonal view, hence "no major walls" between.

Regarding 'cheap'. If £20.00 would fix my problem then great, if it doesen't, it is not cheap, so if the cheapest router to fix my problem was £120-00 then that is cheap.

Finally I bought a 10 meter, or metre, or yard, cable, or lead, & moved the router (or should I say modem router) just 5 things away, & I now have 36 & more??? mega things all around the house.