Does changing second router from Access Point to extender improve performance for an entire house?

Question

I've got a main router in the living room and one in the attic, where my personal office room is. I've set them up both as different access points. When I'm downstairs, I (of course) have 100% signal from the downstairs router and about 5% from the one in the attic, while when I'm in the attic the router there is great and the one downstairs is completely useless. Both routers connect to the same cabled LAN.

I'm getting a bit annoyed that I often have a crap signal because my wireless devices automatically connect to the preferred router (attic, I'm there the most) and I can't change that, since it's a matter of priority over best signal (OS X Default).

I'm thinking of changing the attic router to an extender with the same SSID as the downstairs router, hoping that wherever I am, I get best of both worlds (Best signal, best performance, less manual connecting).

I'm asking one, perhaps two questions:

1. Does changing the second router to an extender give best of both worlds as described above?
2. If not: What is the best advice?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Does changing the second router to an extender give best of both worlds as described above?

In order for your second (attic) wireless router to function effectively as a range extender, it will need to connect wirelessly to the first router. However, if as you say, "when I'm in the attic the [signal from the] router there is great and the one downstairs is completely useless," it doesn't sound like the router will have enough signal to connect to the first one.

Even if it did, the better approach would be to configure both wireless routers to broadcast identical wireless networks. Then as you move from one signal to the next, your wireless clients will roam to the strongest signal without your manual intervention.

A few things to keep in mind when implementing this:

1. Each wireless router must be configured with the same SSID, wireless passphrase, and wireless security and encryption mode.
2. Both routers must be on the same LAN (IP subnetwork).
3. If you're using the routers for DHCP, only one of them should provide DHCP services (you can optionally have DHCP on both, but make sure their pool ranges don't overlap).