Synology RT2600ac no-go

Maybe I can adjust the antennas on the router, although I doubt that will have a significant effect.

Yeah.. unlikely to make much difference. WiFi can be expected to improve if signal rises by an increment of 3dBi.. that equals a doubling of actual power output. Shoving antennas around is unlikely to produce any radical sort of change.

Moving the whole router can have much better effect. If the direct path to the router is blocked by metal objects.. moving the router a couple of meters from its present location.. up, down or sideways.. and use a proper wifi analyser..I use built in Mac diagnostics or a free download, netspot to put actual numbers to effect you get.

In an apartment you might just find Powerline Adapters are a better solution.

Yes, of course, "extends" doesn't amplify

The WiFi signal strength is increased, so there is an amplification of the signal strength......but the speed of the WiFi signal that the extender receives is the signal speed that the extender will extend.

So, you will have a stronger signal in the area where the extender is located, but it will be a slower signal.

Yes, the max speed here is 100/40 Mbit for a strange system called fibre to the curb.. but I dropped back to 50/20 as my needs are now much less and the cost is fairly high. Some people were lucky and got fibre to the house.. and full 1000Mbit speed...

Your needs around the network should be greater than just internet. Gigabit on local network allows backups and streaming and security cams etc to work properly as well as internet all at the same time. You are going to struggle if you limit down to internet speed on the whole network.

Yes... Local network should be capable of gigabit on any wired segment without any great problems and top speed at least on AC wifi is around half that so 500Mbps.. AX will go considerably faster if you spend big but for now most people are buying AX cheaper units with max speed about the same as AC was capable of. It is getting cheaper for the same speed rather than faster.

But my motto is wire it.. if it does not move a wire is the best, fastest, cheapest and most reliable. WiFi also is easier when broken into segments such that each area of the house has a different AP but all tied together via one main router, whether or not mesh is used. Mesh makes for easier connection to mobile devices as you walk around the house.. but it is not a big issue if you simply don't move.

I work with a mix of GbE, 10 GbE, 40 GbE, 100 MbE, and (thankfully rarely) 10 MbE ThinWire, and thankfully no vampire taps and FatWire as that’s all been replaced by Twisted Pair transceivers. For most of us, 100 MbE is definitely slower that GbE, too. Particularly if you’re slinging media files around, or are streaming HD OTA DTV content as one of the sites I support mdoes.

Yes, local NIC speeds are noticeable, as are slow Wi-Fi links, even if your ISP is “only” providing DSL speeds. Particularly when slinging larger files.

Wi-Fi network extenders can hammer performance, too.

As was mentioned above, wired is very much preferable for backhaul.

And Access Points are preferable to Wi-Fi routers when coverage is an issue. And I’ve had some success with fewer or one higher-end AP replacing multiple lower-end routers and lower-end APs, too.

Even if you have several devices on the network, they are sharing that bandwidth, so would there be any noticeable difference between a gigabit Ethernet port on or a 100 Mbps Ethernet port in such a situation?

If you are talking about doing absolutely nothing but internet from one device, then you will see little difference between fast (100Mbps) and gigabit ethernet (1000Mbps).

But I hope you are backing up.. and if you do that from a laptop that means using the local network rather than hard disk plugged in when you remember. Time Machine is highly inefficient and slow networks make it hugely more difficult to get backups done within the 1hr incremental time.. you want those backups to go through fast.. as any use of wifi on the network to do backups is going to drastically reduce your internet speed. Once you add multiple computers and a few devices.. fast ethernet can really start to lag.

Cost wise.. gigabit is pretty much the standard. If you ensure all your local network is gigabit.. that will allow for better response for the slow items like wifi and yes.. you do notice it once you build out the network a bit. With just two people in the house now my main router can show 20 devices online.. and that is without much in the way of home automation.

(thankfully rarely) 10 MbE ThinWire

MrHoffman .. has been in the game a long time to see Thickwire and Twisted Pair transceivers. I have a few of those transceivers lying around. I used to rewire them for RS232 serial to cat5 for all sorts of things.

I wired my house 10BaseT.. at a time when only business used networking and a fast cable connection >10Mbps before they slapped limits on it.. my kids hosted networking gaming parties in basement area of the house. That made us the most popular family in the area. We had to run extension electric cables because they would throw the breakers with all the CRT monitors and huge computers of the time.

But twisted pair soon took over.. and working on a 10Mbps network was hopeless once we got even 100Mbps. I have only just finished totally rewiring with Cat6 on really long runs.. trying to use Powerline adapters or wifi bridges. They worked but in the end just cause trouble.

For my needs gigabit is fine.. but I see people now using 10GbE in their homes.. and it is good to plan when wiring to plan for upgrades once 10G switches etc become cheaper.

NYC is generally understood to mean New York City, but anything is possible, I suppose.