Modems, Gateways, Routers, oh my! (idiot alert!)

[SusiQ]

To begin, I KNOW NOTHING. Please have patience.

The internet connection speed at my parents' place is horrendous. They have an AT&T gateway (2wire?) that constantly loses connection. We have to power it off, wait a few sec and restart very frequently. It is connected to the phone jack.

At my apartment, I have a modem that is connected to a NETGEAR router (the N300 wireless router). This setup is great for me, and I want to set it up for my mom.

Can I connect a N300 wireless router to the at&t gateway to get a faster speed? I guess I would be using the gateway as a modem (?). Would that just give me the same crappy speed under a different wireless id?

Be gentle. Thank you.

 

[Peter.Cort]

You'll just get the same intermittent connection through the router instead of the gateway.

Question about the gateway, how did they come across that? It's a small business gateway and the main usage of it appears to be for telecom purposes. Not that it can't be used for computers, but if they could get a straight modem then it would likely fix the issues.