Add Range Extender to AC68U or use MESH?

[Deleted member 28741]

Hello - Can you help me please?

I live in an apartment complex and have an AC68U which is working fine but I have a Internet TV Box that only has the 2.4Mhz band available. The signal keeps dropping and the connection fails leading to buffering.

Unfortunately the 2.4mhz band is crammed full like a tin of sardines and this channel is now almost unusable for me. There must be 2 dozen or more routers around me on this band.

Questions:-

(1) Would you recommend I buy a RANGE EXTENDER or get a MESH adapter?

(2) If I get an extender can I use any brand like TP-Link or does it have to be an Asus device?

(3) I use MAC address filtering on the AC68U but will that work with a Range Extender als0 and block devices not on the list in the AC68U?

Many thanks for your help in advance. Much appreciated.

 

[Klueless]

Unfortunately the 2.4mhz band is crammed full like a tin of sardines and this channel is now almost unusable for me. There must be 2 dozen or more routers around me on this band.

And you know this how?

1. Because when you go to connect you see dozens of choices?
2. Because you used a WiFi analyzer?;

IF #1 then we've some work to do.

• Round up the usual suspects: baby monitors, 2.4GHz cordless phones, Chromecast; get your router off the floor and out of the corner.
• Load a WiFi Analyzer onto your laptop or smart phone.
  • Walk around the house checking signal levels and channels.
  • Now... what's the "best" channel to use for your router?

IF #2 then does the 5GHz signal reach your TV? Might be a lot cheaper/easier to simply get a new "Internet TV Box" that supports 5GHz?

 

[bbunge]

Make sure you set the 2.4 ghz to channel 1, 6 or 11 and the bandwidth to 20mhz. Your tv box just might like these settings better than 20/40 or 40mhz!

Sent from my P01M using Tapatalk

 

[Deleted member 28741]

Thanks very much for your help guys. I did change to Channel 11 and 20Mhz as advised.

I had already used a wifi analyser app before coming here to map the coverage but really couldn't work out what was wrong as the signal strength on 2.4 was fine. There were a lot of other routers around so I thought that might be the source of interference.

The problem was with both the internet streaming tv box buffering a lot (from the local tv station) and the AV Receiver dropping signal while listening to internet radio or airplay music from my NAS. Both have only the 2.4 band unfortunately.

Then I found the problem ... the newly installed ROKU was pushing out a wifi signal of its own. The solution was easy after that - pull the plug on it .

Glad I didn't fork out on a repeater, mesh or a new router!