[editmire]

I have a home network set up as follows:

Verizon Fios internet 35mb/s UL/DL speed internet connection

*Some sort of Fios-supplied cable modem/network hub/wifi sender integrated unit
*Airport extreme base station plugged into the above cable modem/network hub/wifi sender
*3 Airport express units, all set up on the Airport Extreme's network
-one only to feed airplay to a receiver
-one only to connect a printer to the network
-one which is going to be (haven't set up yet) supplying airplay to another receiver AND a ethernet connection to an Xbox360 so it can access the internet
*One internet-enabled TV, with an ethernet connection to the airport extreme base station to do things like Netflix streaming

I'm getting very slow speeds most of the time on the network, say 0.5 to 5 mb/s, it varies a lot... I'm new to Fios and haven't ever used my airport extreme, which in my old place was the only wireless piece, to run a multi-node system like this.

When I switch to the network that the FIOS-supplied cable modem/wifi-hub is sending, a separate wifi network, I get much better performance (though still well short of the advertised 35/35 mb/s UL/DL.

Is there something about what I'm trying to do that's just wrong?

Is there a big loss of bandwidth from the wifi/wired hub that is in between the FIOS signal and the airport extreme, even though the only thing that's using its signal is the airport extreme & its connected network? I wonder if the wifi hub in this unit can be disabled using its software?

Any tips would be hugely appreciated.

[Waragainstsleep]

Are the Expresses extending the network or just clients?

Have you tried changing the wireless channels?

[editmire]

one of the AE is extending the network (but when I took it off the network there was no change in the problem)

no, I haven't tried changing channels... I didn't know I could do that.

[Thorzdad]

Is that Fios modem/hub/sender thing also acting as a NAT firewall? That might be part of the problem.

[Waragainstsleep]

You can change the wireless channel from auto to a channel of your choice in case it interferes with other wifi networks or cordless phones etc.

[ibook_steve]

If, when connected directly to the Fios modem (either wired or wireless) you are not getting the speeds you paid for (what speeds are you getting with that anyway?), then you should contact Verizon. This should be the first thing to check.

But assuming your Internet connection is not the problem, we need to go step by step. If the Extreme is hard wired to the modem, perhaps the modem needs to be in a bridged mode. As Thorzdad mentioned, it might be doing NAT and DHCP, conflicting with the Extreme. Putting the modem in a bridged mode and letting the Extreme handle all this might be the solution.

Are you using the 5GHz 802.11n network on the Extreme? As much as I'd like to use it on my network, I've found that I don't get nearly the same performance as I do with the 2.4 GHz network, probably because of distance (Extreme is downstairs, office is upstairs). Switching to using the 2.4 GHz network fixed this.

You should also try, for now, disconnecting all the Expresses and first focusing on connections to the Extreme. Once you've got that working than bring the Expresses back into the picture. Network troubleshooting, IMO, starts with simplifying everything as much as possible.

Steve