After arriving in Washington on Tuesday I found my hosts’ wifi network to be rather unreliable. They have the fast Verizon FIOS system which comes with its own wifi router. However, because of reception problems they had recently added a booster unit. Unfortunately this booster had a separate address and it was necessary to switch wifi networks when moving around the house.
I suggested an Apple Airport Extreme in conjunction with the four Airport Express units that had been used solely for music streaming.
This proved to be a sensible and very easy solution. We plugged an Ethernet cable from the Verizon modem into the new Extreme and disabled the wifi on the existing modem/router. The Extreme set itself up in bridge mode and we were in business within half an hour.
The motley collection of Expresses took a bit longer; three needed firmware updates, which were performed automatically, but all four were soon connected and performing well.
Following these modest changes we had a transformed network with a strong signal throughout the house and seamless moving from one location to the other.
We had some concerns that the Extreme would not pair easily with the unusual FIOS modem but they proved to be groundless.
Pretty much the same issue and the same setup I did as well. Rock solid now. I actually left the FIOS WiFi on and I give that to guests if they need access.