Some Introductory Resources

Techquickie YT Videos:
- Routes vs Switches VS APs...
- What Router Settings Should You Change

Speed Tests

Websites:

speedtest.net
DSLReports (Includes BufferBloat results)
WebRTC Troubleshooter (Useful if you are trying to optimize for Web RTC)
PacketLossTest.com (Useful for testing jitter / latency issues)

Routers

Settings

The following pages have decent breakdowns of advanced router settings, particularly for WiFi settings.

Tip for Linksys: There is often a hidden "advanced wireless" settings page that you can only get to by URL. Usually you just need to replace the end of your dashboard URL with /advanced-wireless.html. For example: 192.168.1.1/.../dynamic/home.html --> 192.168.1.1/.../dynamic/advanced-wireless.html

Settings Breakdown

MTU Size
- https://hide.me/en/knowledgebase/how-to-find-correct-mtu-values/
- https://kb.netgear.com/19863/Ping-Test-to-determine-Optimal-MTU-Size-on-Router

Setting up a Router as an Access Point

In this section "router" means the secondary router you are trying to turn into an AP, and "primary router", means the true router that is providing internet to the secondary.

Depends on router, but general steps are:

Some routers might have a dedicated menu for a different operation mode - make sure it is set to "Access Point" and not Router
Make sure that the router has an IP address different from the primary
- E.g., if you access primary at 192.168.1.1, make sure this router gets 192.168.1.2
- An extra step is to make sure that this IP address does not get assigned to any other device. You can do this by doing one of the following:
  - Either pick an IP for the router outside the DHCP assignment range (pool) of the primary router, or...
  - Enter the router's MAC address in the primary router DHCP reservation section, reserving its IP for its use ONLY
Disable DHCP server on the router
- This step is important, as the primary router needs to be the one handling this; you don't want conflicts
Set the SSID of the router to match the primary router
- Make sure to also replicate the security key type and value
- This is so existing devices can easily switch between whatever router is closer / stronger
Make sure that the router, either once connected to or prior, has the primary router's IP as the default gateway and DNS entries values
Make sure that rebooting to apply settings and actually connecting the router to your primary are the last steps, so it does not disturb your existing setup

Some tips:

For auto switching between APs as you move about:
- Make sure SSIDs are the same
- Make sure both password and encryption type are the same
- Channel does not have to match (and probably should not, to avoid interference)
- On your phone, or other device you are moving between APs, check for a setting like "roaming aggressiveness"
  - Usually devices try to avoid switching too often, since each switch requires a "handoff" procedure that uses up a little extra power and can result in dropped packets
  - However, increasing aggressiveness will reduce the time (or drop in signal strength from one AP to another) required before your device switches.
  - The danger of making it too aggressive is that if you are sitting right in the middle between two APs, you might see your device constantly switching between them.