Will my internet speed decrease if I connect two routers together?

Question

I have ethernet connection and its connected to a router and then to my computer using the LAN port of the router . Everything is fine but the router is kept on another floor and thus , I cannot use wifi on other devices as I get very weak signal . So , my question is that if I buy another router and connect it with my first router and finally connect my computer with the second router , will this affect my internet speed ?

Solution 1

If the two routers are connected through cable the answer is almost no (you pay a little overhead).

But you don't need another router, an access point (or a repeater) is a better choice.

Note: you must choose a different non-overlapping wireless channel for the 2nd router. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

Solution 2

Will it decrease your speed? Yes. Will it decrease your speed noticeably? No. Local network connections and routing are fast enough that they won't add a significant overhead.

Comments

[Ramhound]

If you connect this new router over a physical LAN connection it will not decrease your internet speeds but increase it since the signal will be better. If you extend the wireless conenction by connecting the router to the other router wirelessly then, yes, your internet speeds will decrease since you are extending the network and thats what happens.

[Saksham]

If I connect the second router via LAN-to-LAN connection and disable DHCP ,will it act like a access point ? I have read it somewhere.

[CodyChen]

Yes. You can connect it LAN to LAN. Make sure you disable DHCP on the second router so the first can provide the requested IP address.

[Ankit Bhatnagar]

If I use another router to extend my wifi connection using LAN, it reduces the speed considerably. In mycase, from 250mbps to 70mbps. My cat6 cable is delivering full speed, but why the speed is reduced when I use router to extend (by disabling dhcp settings ofcourse)

[Ankit Bhatnagar]

@wbeard52 If I use another router to extend my wifi connection using LAN, it reduces the speed considerably. In mycase, from 250mbps to 70mbps. My cat6 cable is delivering full speed, but why the speed is reduced when I use router to extend (by disabling dhcp settings ofcourse)