benefit of 3rd party router?
Can anyone tell me under what conditions a network would benefit from adding a 3rd party router such as the Netgear Nighthawk to the HT2000w? And if you did add it, how could you tell it was making a...
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GabeU, thanks for answering. Is a full broadcast icon a guarantee of full strength/range? or is it possible that a signal could be diminished/degraded and my wifi icon is still at full strength?
I have Hughes Business and our connection has been very unstable and slow. I hear you on the increased traffic, but I was also wondering if maybe having more devices drawing on the system (husband and kids using zoom and internet for work/online school; more devices connecting than usual) was too much for the HT2000w to handle and that maybe the signal was split too many ways/degraded, especially the further I got from the router. That said, the wifi icon still shows full strength as far as possible from the router; AND I hooked up a Netgear Nighthawk x6s (8000) today (disabled the HT2000) and I think it made no difference--though I'm not sure how to measure that with any precision. If, as you say, range is the only benefit, then I guess it is no surprise that there was no noticeable improvement. Am just trying to give whatever signal I AM able to get from the satellite the best chance to stay at full strength once it's in the house and no matter how many people are using it.
Thanks for any other advice. If I don't hear otherwise from you, will probably unhook the Nighthawk and send it back.
I'm not really familiar with how accurate the built in signal indicators in devices are. Personally, I would check your WiFi signal strength using an actual application for that purpose. The HughesNet Mobile App has a basic tester. You can get it at the App Store or Google Play. I'm not familiar with the Apple version, but for the Android version you can get to the signal tester by tapping the orange plus sign on the lower right and tapping the middle icon that pops up. When you go to use the tester, you may get a message that says "We found some ways you can improve your Network performance. Do you want to proceed?" It does this for everyone, so just click no, otherwise it will give you phone number to call. Annoying, for sure. :p
When you use this tester, you'll be testing the strength of the WiFi band the device is currently connected to. So, if you're using a smart phone and that phone is connected via the 2.4GHz band, that's the band you'll be testing. The same with the 5GHz band.
But again, you can use whatever WiFi signal strength app you like. I'd test in the different areas of your home that you use devices to see how well the signal is reaching those areas. If you find an area that isn't getting at least a "GOOD" signal strength (preferably "EXCELLENT"), see if the Nighthawk is any better. If it is, you may want to keep it and use it.
For reference, the 2.4GHz band has better range than the 5GHz band, but the 5GHz band is less susceptible to interference. Also, you may get better performance out of the 5GHz band, so if you have devices that can utilize the 5GHz band and they are within at least a "GOOD" signal footprint (preferably "EXCELLENT) for that band, you may want to use it over the 2.4GHz band for those devices.
Lastly, service speed will be divided among devices actively using the service at the given time, though how it's divided will depend on the type of activity being performed on each of them.
