How can I get a better internet connection?

[rednal]

Hi, I don't really know much about networking, so sorry if I don't make much sense. Here's my dilemma: my PC is in my room which is in the basement. My modem is upstairs along with another thing that I think is supposed to boost my WiFi signal. My mom's office is also in the basement and two weeks ago she had AT&T come out since her WiFi signal was poor. The man put this in her room which I think is a router however I don't know if it is a modem. He then connected her PC to the internet via a wired connection by putting the Ethernet cable which was connected to the Ethernet port into the router and then he put another cable going from the router to the PC. One question I have is why does she need a router if she can plug the Ethernet cable straight into her PC? I have this router, however I'm not sure what I do with it. Can I replace this router with the one upstairs or in my mom's office and get a better connection? Is there something I can buy/do to make my connection downstairs more powerful? When I play games during the evening, usually around 8:00 at night, I get extreme lag spikes while playing games (specifically BF3) which make it unplayable. When I'm playing on the server I usually go on, I average around 40 ping during the daytime but it can jump up to 1000+ at certain times during the night. I've wanted a wired connection since I got my PC, however the guy from AT&T said it couldn't be done since there was no way to run it through the floor. Any solutions/opinions are greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
rednal

 

[Elixer]

Well, that AT&T 2wire device is junk.
It overheats way too often, and has all sorts of issues with it.
I bet they charged you way too much for that as well.

Anyway, if your mom has a office basement, that means, she has a phone connection there.
The thing they installed is a combo unit. It would have been much better to have the stand-alone DSL modem, hook that up to the downstairs office phone jack (with filter), then hook up that modem to your router, and then your connection to the router could be either wired or wireless.
If you go upstairs, and your wireless signal is low then you can use a wifi repeater or another router in bridge mode to get a better wireless signal.

For your ping issues, you only have 6Mb/s (if ideal) connection with DSL, and sometimes, much lower (4-5Mb/s is average). That means that if too many people are using the connection at night, then you will see your ping times jump all over the place.
If you are the only one using the connection, then, that means either the router is crap, or there isn't enough bandwidth available at AT&T's end to service everyone.
You can find out by doing a trace route to the BF3 server you are trying to connect to, and check the times. If the first few hops are more than 20ms, then you got issues with the crappy router. If you see hops higher than 1000ms after it leaves your router, then that means AT&T needs to have more bandwidth for that node you are routed to.

 

[RLGL]

Move out and get your own place, be careful what you wish for.

 

[tkivisto]

I have powerline ethernet in use at my house. Plug one unit beside the router (mine is a FIOS unit) and the 2nd unit beside your PC. If the wiring in your house is good, this system just works. I get full speed from my service (50/25)...I actually get a little better than 50 at times and better than 25 most of the time.