Dual-Band Networking

I am connected from the office in the back of my house via my ASUS K55A laptop with the built-in Qualcom Atheros single-band network adapter.  I have about 100 yards to reach my Cisco Linksys E2500 dual-band router inside the house.  It usually works but is somewhat intermittent.  We tried to improve the signal by buying an AE2500 Cisco dual-band adapter shown here http://screencast.com/t/FIDbIgI4Jt3W.  It installed properly with the disk supplied but I can no longer see the 5ghz network when I plug it in despite the fact that the 2.4ghz is working.  How can I get the 5ghz network to show up when I plug in the Cisco AE2500?
frugalmuleAsked:
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Fred MarshallConnect With a Mentor PrincipalCommented:
What is the key feature with respect to range?
rf propagation.  This means all of these things:
- line of sight from one to the other or not?
- absence or presence of walls or other obstructions in the path.  Outside walls are worse than inside walls.
- antennas
- multipath (presence of strong reflectors) that may help or hinder and is very sensitive +/- if present.

Power is OK as an enhancement but not nearly so much as what you can do with proper antenna selection and placement and orientation.    Higher is not necessarily better.  Line of sight is.  A clear line of sight is great but only if the antenna pattern uses it (that is you can see with the eyeball but the antenna pattern may not be max in that direction).  And the "antenna pattern" really means the composite of antennas at both ends.
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NetfloConnect With a Mentor Commented:
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ibrahim52Connect With a Mentor Team LeaderCommented:
You mean to say, I am sorry I didn't get it clearly but as long as I understand you have your home router connected with the laptop in the office ? and you are using your laptop in home through the router placed in home. Is that what you mean ?
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ibrahim52Connect With a Mentor Team LeaderCommented:
I'd suggest you to change the network mode to N and give it a try or otherwise check out the links below having different discussing based on your issue.

Referred link 1 :-
http://www.justanswer.com/computer-networking/6hm5n-e2500-not-5ghz-connection.html

Link 2 :-
http://community.linksys.com/t5/Wireless-Routers/E2500-5-GHz-network-issue/td-p/484590
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Fred MarshallConnect With a Mentor PrincipalCommented:
Please help us understand what you mean by:
I can no longer see the 5ghz network
If you have a single band wireless interface on the laptop (assumed to be 2.4GHz) then what "sees" the 5GHz signal?

I'm not sure of the architecture you're trying to achieve:

1) Just use 5GHz with the idea that it somehow might be better?
2) Use 5GHz for a building-to-building link and 2.4GHz for the computers
3) or?......
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frugalmuleAuthor Commented:
I'm not sure of the proper way to lay this out.
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frugalmuleAuthor Commented:
The 5ghz is going to have a greater 'range', right?  Therefore, it should work in the office behind the house?
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frugalmuleAuthor Commented:
I've gotten to the point that I can see and connect to the 5ghz band using the Cisco AE2500 network adapter from within the house.  All is well when that happens.  In the office outside of the house, I can't see it, but I can connect to the 2.4ghz band.  Nothing seems to make sense.
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frugalmuleAuthor Commented:
Interesting screenshot http://screencast.com/t/8kVNIoNRcg.  If I connect to the 2.5ghz band which is the only one showing up, and I do it via the AE2500 Dual-band adapter, the signal strength gets worse than using the built-in single-band Qualcom adapter.  Something is wrong here.

So far, I have disabled ipv6 for simplicity sake and am using only Wireless N.
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Fred MarshallConnect With a Mentor PrincipalCommented:
Why do you assume that 5GHz will have greater range?

Is there a 5GHz signal source at work at all?
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frugalmuleAuthor Commented:
I thought that the ghz had an impact on range in much the same way that 5 ghz cordless phones once did.

Please inform me.
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Fred MarshallConnect With a Mentor PrincipalCommented:
Well, as I understand it, the 5Ghz bands offer more bandwidth which may relate to higher signaling rate.  But power level is likely the same and antenna patterns and reflections and attenuation are all going to be different.  Attenuation is likely to be higher through walls, etc.  but I can't say that for sure.    But to get to longer range is not a sure thing at all.
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frugalmuleAuthor Commented:
What is the key feature with respect to range?
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