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I just want to say that “WiFi bars” mean absolutely nothing. They’re mostly marketing and it’s actually a game how they “rate” the link quality and performance characteristics. They know every one wants to see “full bars” and will strive to display that regardless of whether such a great connection and/or quality actually exists.
It’s very much akin to “bars” on a cellular phone. And manipulated for the same reasoning.
You need to do a site scan and RF profile that would be my initial starting point. You can’t use mere distance or “bars” as a reliable indicator of anything - you want and require actual cold hard numbers and observation of the link quality at each position etc etc.
Just a couple things off the top of my head; hope it at least gets you started. One thing you may consider - I’ve never found the built-in WiFi to be all that impressive on the Pepwave stuff. It seems to be a “bolt on” thing. These boxes are really designed as wired routers and switches with WiFi being bolted on because, well, gotta have it. You could always use a separate AP (s) and connect them to your SOHO. I realize that will cost money if you don’t own one already but may be worth the investment if you want the SOHO as your router and Wireless is your primary use case for getting data in and out of the device.
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I would guess the wifi signal was not strong despite what wifi device said. There is no need to trust the device, the router also knows what the signal strength is. It is shown in Status → Client list. Numbers in the -40s and -50s are great. The -60s should be good enough. Not sure about -70s. Certainly -80s are bad.
The 5ghz band does not travel well through stuff (walls, furniture, etc). Create a wifi network that is only using the 2.4GHz band and see if that fixes the problem. People focus on speed far too much. The 2.4ghz band is fast enough for almost everyone almost all the time. And, if it offers a better signal, it will be much faster than 5ghz.
Also, let the router chose a 2.4ghz channel on its own. In the 2.4ghz band restrict it to channels 1, 6, 11. If you have some type of wifi scanning app, then you can also prevent the router from using 5ghz channels that your neighbors are using.
Try moving the router to improve reception.
Try different antennas, some can be had for $8 each.
Try moving the antennas without moving the router. You can buy an extension wire that sits between the antennas and the router.
Wifi reception and VLANs should be apples and oranges. The VLAN config would be last thing I would consider as part of the problem.
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I don’t recommend any of the “mesh” solutions. They are all over-priced and under-powered along with rather mediocre software and firmware capabilities as compared to the Pepwave devices.
If you end up needing to separate out AP(s) for WiFi, I would go with Ubiquiti AP’s as needed. They are reasonably priced and will work perfectly behind your SOHO to handle the WiFi part of your network. Pepwave has APs as well but I’ve never used them and have no experience with those products or their performance. I use a lot of Ubiquiti stuff and their WiFi AP’s are just fantastic.
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