I have a somewhat difficult router situation at my house.

I am currently using a pair of WRT54GL routers to provide wireless coverage to my condominium and to the condominium below mine in the same building.

The "primary" router runs a LAN (my computer, SWMBO's iMac, cable modem, OOMA VOIP phone, color laser printer) through Ethernet. Its wireless signal goes out my window and feeds a "repeater" router out on the deck of the condominium below mine. These routers were configured for me by Mark Lord and have worked well for the past several years. The primary router is running the native Cisco firmware, and Mark set up the repeater with DD-WRT.

Both routers are becoming a bit flaky, and I think they will need to be replaced in the not too distant future.

Mark has suggested that I upgrade to Class-N routers, and this seems reasonable to me. The Class-N routers are rated to have considerably more range than the Class-G routers (three to five times more), so I am wondering if perhaps I could get by with a single Class-N to cover both floors. Currently the lower floor can "see" the primary router, but signal strength is such that there is no reliable internet connectivity.

The increased speed/throughput of the Class-N is not a factor, since my ISP provides a maximum 15Mbps per second, of which I've never seen more than 14.

Of course, increased range through the air does not necessarily mean increased penetration through concrete, and therein lies the problem. The floor/ceiling between the two condominiums is 14 inches of steel-reinforced concrete, which is pretty effective at damping out wireless signals.

I understand that the 2.4GHz band is better at penetrating walls than the 5GHz band, and I think that some of our wireless equipment may not be 5GHz capable, so dual-band is not necessary. 2.4GHz is all I want.

So... what is the likelihood of a Class-N router punching a signal through the floor to the condominium below? And if it might work, are there recommendations for any particular router?

tanstaafl.