jjmb

If you look at your billing at Uverse, it will have a tab for bill history and data use but when you look at it, there is no data usage which sort of implies they are not implementing the data cap (yet). At Suddenlink, it has a bar which tells how much data you have used up to the previous day but it doesn't give you any indication on how this is calculated.
Reading up about it, a lot of people are complaining about lack of information and inaccurate data amounts. Just hope the FCC finally decides the internet is a basic utility and treats it like land line phones otherwise there will be a lot of poorer sections of society that will have very limited access (even more than now) to the internet which will affect their social mobility as having use of the internet is essential these days, for school and work.

Pulaski

You're using an AT&T wifi hub? .... Ditch it and buy your own. We have a Western Digital wifi hub, which covers the whole house and parts of the yard close to the house, out to maybe around 100'-150'.

sir_eccles

If you can take a really long ethernet cable plug it into your modem/router and route it through the roof space and then plug in a second wireless access point on the other side of the house, name it with the same SSID and security but a different channel. Did that here and I think it has really helped.

The alternative to ethernet is powerline adapters but there is a bandwidth cost and is very dependent on the quality of your wiring. It didn't work well for me.

dj6372

I've used Netgear N600 for a while, UK and US, never had a problem
Available in DSL and Cable

ChocolateBabz

I'll look into a replacement, silly question #2 is there something I should be looking at (on the description) that will tell me how 'strong' the signal will be. Most of the house is OK, but our bedroom doesn't get a great signal (good enough to work but bad enough to annoy us) and the media room gets bugger all. Would really like to use Netflix up there!

OK I'm gonna be a numpty - is a wireless access point different from an extender?

sir_eccles

A wireless access point is just a normal wifi hub or wireless router. As far as I know, extenders are mostly marketing bs, they may have more broadcast power but often the issue people are having is a wall physically blocking or attenuating the signal.

ChocolateBabz

So I happen to have a spare (don't ask - AT&T didn't) router. Exactly the same as the one currently plugged in. If I ran an Ethernet cable from the current one to the media room and plugged in the spare one - that would do the trick?

sir_eccles

Maybe. It depends if you can set it up in bridge mode or not. Some make it easier to do than others. Search on google for the model name and "bridge mode".

scrubbedexpat099

15GB per month for $90 per month, I have a range extender adds about 30ft?

Microwave has just become available, guy should have been here today...

quiltman

I use bitMeter on my PC to monitor my usage. You can set it for a monthly limit and it'll warn you when you get near. Also shows download/upload speeds. The problem is that I think it only monitors the machine it's installed on. There must be programs that enable you to monitor the total download through the router? If you have caps then I would have thought your provider should enable you to monitor your download. some techies can probably advise.

scrubbedexpat099

My On Line account shows data usage.

thinbrit

I've installed a few of these for friends and relatives. For consumer grade wireless they are really rather good

I cover over 10 acres completely with Ubiquiti UniFi products, but they are not for the non techies https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ac/.
Consumer grade "Range extenders" are problematic for many reasons. Unless your property dictates you need more than one access point for full coverage, invest in a good single access point instead of a cr@ppy access point and several cr@ppy range extenders.

ChocolateBabz

Thanks tb, I think I have talked himself into having a fiddle at the weekend. I did consider getting a geek in to have a look at it, some of these things have so many settings I wouldn't know where to start. I'm a plug n play kinda girl!

scrubbedexpat099

Hmmm

Hiro11

One option: sign up for small business service. It's often more reliable, uncapped and not much more expensive. Also, they give you better equipment. I use a very high end home WiFi router as well, it makes a big difference.

The ultimate solution is Google Fiber. Google Fiber can't come fast enough to Chicago.