Wi-Fi coverage
Where should the router go? A room-by-room speed test method
Short answer: put the router as central and as high as you can, in the open, away from the floor, thick walls, metal and fish tanks. Then prove it with a short survey: one cabled baseline test at the router, then the same test in every room where people actually use the internet. The pattern of results tells you whether to move the router, add a mesh node with a wired link, or leave things alone. It also catches the cases where Wi-Fi is not the problem at all.
Why the room matters so much
Wi-Fi speed falls with distance and obstacles because the link rate your device negotiates drops as the signal weakens. NETGEAR's support documentation explains that "the link rate is directly related to WiFi signal strength" and that the speed you actually get is far below the link rate: "a link rate of 300 Mbps usually corresponds to 50 to 90 Mbps speed on the TCP/UDP layer" (NETGEAR KB 19668). So a device two walls away can show "full bars" and still deliver a fraction of what a device next to the router gets.
The 20-minute survey
- Baseline on a cable. Plug a laptop into the router with an Ethernet cable and run the test three times. Take the middle result. This is the most your Wi-Fi can ever deliver.
- Same device, next to the router, on Wi-Fi. Use the 5 GHz (or 6 GHz) network. The gap from step 1 is what the radio itself costs.
- Every room that matters. Desk, sofa, bedroom, the console, the far end of the garden office. Stand or sit where the device normally is, and run one test in each spot. Keep the same device and the same browser for every test.
- Write down both directions and both latency numbers. Weak Wi-Fi often shows first as a collapse in upload and a jump in loaded latency, not only in download.
Use a worksheet like this one:
| Spot | Connection | Download | Upload | Idle / loaded latency | % of cable baseline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Router (baseline) | Ethernet | 100% | |||
| Router | Wi-Fi 5 GHz | ||||
| Office desk | Wi-Fi | ||||
| Living room TV | Wi-Fi | ||||
| Bedroom | Wi-Fi |
Reading the pattern
| What you see | Likely cause | What to try |
|---|---|---|
| Cable baseline itself is low (far below your plan) | Not Wi-Fi: plan, modem, router or a cable stuck at 100 Mbps | Check the plan and the cable before touching Wi-Fi; see the modem-direct test |
| Steady fall with distance, worst two or more walls away | Normal signal loss | Move the router towards the middle of the home and off the floor, then re-test the worst room |
| One room collapses while nearer rooms are fine | A specific obstacle (brick chimney, bathroom tiles, metal, mirrors) | A mesh node or access point that can see that room |
| Fine on 5 GHz near the router, very slow far away | 5 GHz fades faster through walls | Let the far device use 2.4 GHz, or add a node; check how to test Wi-Fi accurately |
| Download fine, loaded latency high everywhere | Queueing in the router, not coverage | Read latency vs bandwidth and enable SQM |
Mesh, extenders and the backhaul trap
Adding hardware helps only if the new box has a good path back to the router. Owners' reports show the pattern clearly:
- Wireless mesh backhaul. On a TP-Link Deco XE75 Pro system with a 267 Mbit/s line, wired nodes reached the full speed, but a node linked wirelessly about 15 m away delivered around 110–120 Mbit/s (TP-Link community thread).
- Extender worse than nothing. A NETGEAR community poster on a 1,200 Mbps Xfinity plan saw 5 GHz speed at the PS5 fall from 350–400 Mbps to 120 Mbps after adding an extender, and 2.4 GHz from 130 to 30 Mbps (NETGEAR community). A single-radio extender must receive and resend on the same channel, so it can halve throughput.
- A bad cable looks like bad Wi-Fi. A Deco M4 owner whose third node always topped out at 85–90 Mbps was told by the moderator that the Ethernet link was negotiating at 100 Mbps; the fix was a new cable (TP-Link community thread).
So, in order of preference: move the router; add a node with a wired (Ethernet or MoCA) backhaul; add a tri-band mesh node placed halfway, where it still gets a strong signal; and only then a plain extender.
Placement rules that cost nothing
- Central and elevated beats the corner of the house where the cable happens to enter. A longer Ethernet run from the modem to a central router is often the best upgrade.
- Keep it out of cabinets and away from TVs, microwaves, metal shelves and large water containers.
- Point external antennas in different directions (one vertical, one horizontal) rather than all the same way.
- After any move, re-run the worst two rooms from your worksheet. If they improved by less than about a fifth, the obstacle is structural and a node is the answer.
Related
How to test Wi-Fi speed accurately · Why results change between runs · How much bandwidth your household needs · How our test works