Airport Time Capsule vs. ATT UVerse Router

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1) Would it benefit me in anyway to turn off the ATT Uverse Router wifi and enable the ATC for main wifi?

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Got model numbers on either? If you've got the newest Apple and the Motorolla NVG510 Uverse router and are using an 802.11ac device, your backup times and access to router-stored files will be faster. You could possibly see some range increases, but probably not significant ones. The drawback is, of course, using a single access point. If you spread the devices out and turn on both their wireless radios, you insure more of a "balanced" coverage throughout the house. With the two right next to each other, you probably gain nothing with them both on + introduce some interference that may give some intermittent connection issues. Again, assuming the newest Apple router, you gain 802.11ac, which is great if you have AC devices, worthless if you don't, but with the caveat of possibly better range.

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2) What are benefits of leaving uverse router on and then enabling the 5ghz version of the ATC?

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Assuming the att router you have is single band, you gain a second band. The 5GHz band is best in line of sight (same room) and quickly deteriorates (compared to 2.4GHz) as you add barriers (walls, doors, cabinets...). Benchmarks will say 5GHz outperforms 2.4 in the same room. To be quite honest, I've not really noticed much of a difference myself. As you hit on in the next point, dividing devices across the two networks is nice and will help with performance some.

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4) Finally, we do have a wireless att receiver so I'm wondering if we take everything off the uverse router if that would help tv signal vs. wifi signal, etc?

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So use the ATT router as the dedicated access point for your TV's receiver/IPTV box? The best I can say is that you're not going to hurt it. It could very well be a "congestion" issue where performance improves after you add the new access point (and looking at the uverse router, it doesn't seem like the most robust one ever), but it could also just be the general unreliability of wireless internet vs dedicated hardwire.


A helpful hint: with the latest gen (tall rectangular) apple AirPort Extreme, to use as an access point within the same subnet, I had to put the Ethernet cable in the WAN port (the one off by itself) as opposed to the LAN port (which is the usual way of going about what you're describing doing). It was a very easy setup, but getting that wrong sure was annoying. I didn't find that documented anywhere online, either.


Go ahead and set up the airport as an access point if you're having trouble with your TV signal that it's getting over the wireless. Worst case: no difference. Best case: problem solved.

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How would I move the ATC to a room in the front of the house and use it to extend my current signal?

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The best way to do this is with a long Ethernet cable. With practical distances (under a football field worth of cable, roughly), when things are hard wired, a foot vs 50ft is practically the same. As I'm sure you're aware, that's not the case with wirelessly connected things. If you can't run a cable to where you want the ATC, you may be better off moving the whole setup to a more central location. If that's not possible either, they do make wireless repeaters. They're less effective than a long cable. But more effective than no signal.