Just installed Fiber.....have a range about router equipment and wifi range

Hi there....been in your situation recently and yes you can definitely use your own router which will give you better wifi coverage .  You do have to keep the Uverse gateway though but what you will need to do is hook your own router into the AT&T gateway and disable the AT&T's wifi......what you will need to do in order to get your own router working properly is passing the AT&T's public IP address to your router which is called DMZ plus mode....to accomplish this you will need to go into the AT&T's firewall settings and go to pinholes and applications and select your router from a list once its connected to the AT&T gatway and click save.......there is a specific thread or two that explains exactly how to do this....just search for threads such as " putting AT&T gateway into bridge mode" , etc... if you have the Pace 5268AC gateway there is no true bridge mode but you can do the passthrough mode like I mentioned above and it has worked fine for me....

Now on to the mesh wifi systems..... over the last month or so I have tested the google wifi, Eero, and Netgear Orbi......they all have their good and bad points and to make this short and sweet I think you would be happy with any of the three I mentioned.....but if you want the one that will deliever you the fastest speed I would recommend the Netgear Orbi......it has its own 5Ghz band used for backhaul between the router and its satelite units and there is hardly any loss in speed/bandwidth.......the only con to the orbi is that I think its not as easy to set up as the other two but its not extremely diffiuclt either......I decided to keep the google wifi because it was so easy to set up and I like the way it looks where its small, etc but speed wise the Orbi was much faster......another good thing about the Orbi which sets it apart from the google wifi and Eero systems is that if you are using google wifi or eero you have to be connected to their cloud and if their service goes down so does your internet; with the orbi this will not happen as it does not rely on being connected to a cloud service.........if I could have returned the google wifi system for a refund I would have kept the Orbi but I let my return window pass and wasn't able to so I had to return the Orbi.......the Eero I returned because the smartphone app had a lot of bugs in it and wasn't accurate but the Eero performed about the same as my google wifi as far as speed goes..........hope that information helps you......

Hi @bungeemike,

As @ukwildcat4life explained, you can use another router. Before you do so, we wanted to pass along some information. 

Modem environment can play a huge factor when it comes to speeds. The modem must be free and clear of electronics like speakers, radios, and other electronics. They have been known to interfere with Wi-Fi. Also, testing different channels on the modem is also a possible solution. If this works, you do not have to worry about hooking up a router. 

On this page is a section labeled Internet Hot Topics and a link called Slow Speed Troubleshooting, Open that link and you will find a two article: Does Your Wi-Fi, Fly and two links labeled How To Change Your Wireless Channel. These will explain the best modem environment and what you can do to improve your speeds. 

-ATTU-verseCare

Thanks for all the info.  Being the non-IT savvy person I am, I hope I can figure out how to put the modem into bridge mode.  Just wished the AT&T modem/router had better range, but I can ask for everything with the higher speeds I suppose.......now to read up on how to do this like you taught me......thanks again!!

Hi @bungeemike,

The forums actually has a lot of information regarding bridge-mode that has been posted by other community members. Check out this link, it has the search results listed.

Hope this helps. 

-ATTU-verseCare

How do you set up the orbi to work with ATT fiber. Please give step by step instructions.

Why would AT&T spend money on providing a router that deliver the speed you pay for? If you multiplies the amount of customer that signed for the Giga Power Internet by the price of a NetGear NightHawk 1900 for instance

Both modems will do 1gbps hardwired. Both modems won't do 1gbps over WiFi.

support chat keep saying I should get at least 600M on WiFi but it never went above 390 since day one...

This pains me regularly out there in the field. They would tell my grandma with her 2006 Dell laptop that she should be getting 600mbps over WiFi... It's simply not the case, it depends on a lot of variables.

The fastest I have seen over WiFi on our modem and 3rd party modems is a little over 600mbps. This was with brand spanking new Mac laptops.

I fully understand what you answered, however the main point here is more about the consistency and the strength of the signal, again I don't expect my iPad to work with 600M since it is not build for this (at least not the model I have, Ipad Air 2), I have a brand new MacBook Pro that is sitting 5ft away from the Modem and I know the built in Wifi can work above 600M, I ran several speed test (using att speed test link) and the results are speaking by it self:

1st: 584M

2nd: 288M

3rd: 397M

4th: 220M

5th: 320M

6th: 332M

7th: 304M

(those are download speed and were all completed within 3 minutes, latency is about 11ms as a pike but the test shows more about 25 to 30ms)

I guess now you understand what I'm trying to demonstrate...if your box is build to provide above 600M and I have a device that has at least the same capacity then why most of the results shows that I only have the half of what I can technically get, perhaps the box work better than I initially said as far speed however the signal produced showed by those results prove the inconsistency of the signal, either from the box or upstream from AT&T server, something is not stable, this is why I made a comparison with the competitor I was with for several years that have slowest speed but much more constant signal, I get blew by "Giga Power" advertising that made me switching to you all because lots of promise were made (I wait 5 months to make that decision) and because the way I use internet I found interesting to receive higher speed, but so far I can prove you can't provide any consistency and be way off what it's technically available in my area.

The other point I mention is about the strength, again, and because the signal is not consistent, it doesn't take much more distance away from the modem to lose even more signal, and this is where the 3rd party modem shows way more capacity to maintain a strong Wi-Fi, if this 3rd party modem allows you to not get more than 50M loss being away about 30ft (checked with it standing around 10ft away from AT&T modem) then why AT&T modem can't get the same performance? Again if you are telling me than AT&T modem is producing as much speed as 3rd party brand then why does its not the same with the strength?

I have the same issue.  Three technicians who said there were "too many variables" I know my 802.11ac can do over 600mbps.  Just got off chat with att and they said they will ship me a new router to replace the PACE 5368ac they installed yesterday!  And that I should get 600 mbps over wifi.  I tried setting up my airport extreme but it was slow, my fault I am sure.  Thoughts.  Thanks.

Clear and succinct.  I have an Apple Airport Extreme (1 Gig) which is bridged to another Airport 2T time capsule to serve another part of my home.  I don't want to try to incorporate ATT's gateway into my system that already works well.  This procedure is very clear as to what to do in my case.