When you say your provider wants to provide you a "wireless router",
are you implying that you do not have any physically wired
high-speed internet to this property.  As in, the old copper either isn't
good enough for decent internet and no fibre yet, no cable modem either?

I read your original post thinking you might be thinking of
"extending" the reach of the "wifi" (which is probably isn't, it's
probably 4G or 5G in this case) to your rooms.  That's not what you
do, you don't extend that signal.

Some providers can provide now a box which has a SIM card in it and
talks to the provider over 4G/5G cellular.  On the inside of the
house, they provide a wifi access, just like most other providers.
Also, most of these routers have an ethernet port on the back so you
can, if you like, plug in an ethernet switch or another wifi router
(netgear or TPlink or whatever).

To be clear, the wifi is the part that is at your property.  There are
some providers termed WISPs (wireless internet service providers) that
use wifi (not 4G/5G) to connect you to the internet.  Just being clear
here that even if they do this, we're not talking about extending that
wifi signal.  That signal (whether it's really wifi or 4G or 5G or
even adsl or fibre or cable), it gets terminated at or just before
your router in your house.  So I'm not talking about that side of your
connection at all.

So if I understand properly, you have some devices around your home
that don't have built-in wifi and you are not going to string ethernet
to them.  In this case, what I would do would be to consider some
ethernet-over-powerline (e.g. https://www.tp-link.com/us/powerline/).
In this case, you'd plug the ethernet on the provided router, and then
you would put one (or more) of these devices around the house in the
other rooms and they basically function as an ethernet switch.

Another solution is a wifi device that functions in "client mode" and
gives you an ethernet port.  Essentially a device that functions as a
wifi router in reverse in that the wifi part (WAN) connects to your in
home wifi network and you plug devices into it on the ethernet ports
(LAN ports).  Some wifi routers can be configured this way, especially
older ones.  I have used the older ubiquiti eqiupment like this a lot.
The newer ubiquiti stuff though looks to be more geared towards
offices and hotels, probably way overkill for what you need.  However,
I did find a TP-link product, the "TP-Link AC750 Dual Band Wi-Fi
Travel Router" which seems to do this out of the box along with many
other tricks.  There are many other products out there.  Many of these
devices can also act as wifi repeaters or extenders too.

There are some other technical considerations like whether you care if
NAT is running on this little box or not, but for something like a
television in another room, you probably don't have to care.  NAT
isn't a consideration with the ethernet over power, they thankfully
don't do that.

Me personally, like others on this list, I'd try to find a way to get
an ethernet cable to the other rooms, but in some cases, this just
isn't practical.  I have an ethernet cable up the wall outside my
house and over the top of the roof, not in a conduit!  Been like that
for more than a decade.  But it rarely freezes here.  Your
mileage/kilometerage may vary!

Michael Grant

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