Ethernet over wire is supposed to be good for up to 100 meters so including twists and turns, 130 feet is well within range. I'd suspect the cable, the plugs on the end of the cable, or the wireless access point itself.

I'm confused about you saying that you plugged a laptop into a modem and got a poor signal. That suggests the problem is the Spectrum signal supply wiring itself, or a crappy modem or the setup wasn't done correctly. To fix that would mean calling out Spectrum to check it.

I myself have an Orbi router and satellite to provide a strong signal throughout my large house and it works fine. The backhaul (mesh interconnect) signal goes over the 5 Ghz band and that's less robust than 2.4. It might work but I'd probably want the Orbi units to be near exterior windows/walls near the most direct line of sight direction between the buildings.

One alternative would be to mount high gain antennae on the exterior walls of each building, that certainly would work. Be sure the wifi broadcaster in the secondary buildings, if you're using old routers, have their DHCP (routing) functions turned off or you'll have a mess. THAT can provide a poor signal because of the ambiguity of the signal processing.

An alternative to try would be Powerline equipment, if all the buildings work off of one electricity account and a common main panel. These are small wall warts that route the ethernet signal over the electrical lines. Plug in one in an electrical socket in the main house, connected to the router with an ethernet cable. Plug in another in the secondary location, connect an ethernet cable to the broadcasting equipment (whether an extender, a WAP, or an old router in WAP mode). Less than $100. One caution is that most homes have multiphase electrical service and the Powerline works best when both sockets are connected to the same phase.

Elmer, the 130 feet is the distance the WiFi signal must go, not a wired connection. We ended up using the Apple Airport in the side house, in place of the Spectum-supplied router, with an Airport extender in the back house. That works fine. However, she would like to eliminate one of the Spectrum accounts. Would the mesh system allow for television over internet work? Both houses depend on that service. The two accessory houses might not be on the same account or a common main panel.

Your description is still unclear to me. If you have one router in the main house and a Spectrum router in the side house (without turning off the router functionality), you're going to have a problem. The Wireline approach in any event should be serviceable, as I described, for internet access but as I said, any router in use that's uses a signal coming from a different router needs to be put into WAP mode.

If the Spectrum account is providing TV service, that doesn't involve Wifi but rather a hard-wired coax connection to the TV equipment. If it's used to stream a TV signal (from the internet), different answer.

Don't put a bunch of different consumer-grade WiFi routers onto the same system. They are really not made for this configuration and things will never quite work right. And yes, that includes things like Apple's WiFi products, the router that you got from your ISP, or random expanders.

The suggestion to use a WiFi mesh system is much better. If Orbi can handle the 130ft, then that would be an excellent solution. In practice, that will depend a lot on just how noisy the radio channels are. In a densely populated city, consider yourself lucky if you can use one access point per one or two rooms. The noise floor is simply too high to reliably do better than that. Where I live, I currently see between 300 and 500 access points at any given time. No wonder the noise floor is so high. On the other hand, out in the countryside, the noise floor is almost zero, and a single access point could serve multiple houses if placed in a good location.

If Orbi doesn't work, then look at Ubiquiti's Unfi line, instead. This is the solution that many small offices and hotels use. It'll cost you more up front, and you might have to buy more individual parts, as it is a very modular system. But I guarantee you that it'll work fine even in the most adverse environment.

You'd probably need a CloudKey, a security gateway, a couple of access points (even the smaller ones are great, but the long-range ones might work particularly well for you), either a few mesh access points or a building-to-building bridge, and possibly a few of the smaller switches. Configuration is a little more complex, but once it's set up, you won't need to touch it again. The downside is that for a larger property, you could end up paying a little over $1000 in parts; possibly up to $2000 for more complicated topologies. But you'll end up with a rock solid networking experience.

So, I'd say, try the Orbi first and make use of Costco's great return policy. If it doesn't work reliably throughout all the property, then get a Unifi system instead.

I don't understand the configuration of either the property or the network, but if all of these properties are being used to generate income, it is worth considering getting everything hardwired if at all practical. Most visitors likely consider solid internet a must-have when booking and reviewing.

I see two options:

-get someone in to get ethernet between the locations. You'll need a good, solid 'core' router and some networking skills to manage properly.

-look into companies that provide internet service - perhaps smaller companies - and the cost of running separate internet to each of these buildings (optic?). It may cost more upfront but perhaps can get a discount for the work being done all at once, same for the monthly fees.

Either of these should give more stable internet to each of the three locations even if more expensive upfront.

Perhaps mesh networks will work fine over these distances, but for a semi-commercial grade mesh network, you may be paying as much as getting proper wiring dropped in.

Sorry, Elmer, that I was a little unclear. First, the connection between the main home is wireless (and, it does use an Orbi product). There is an Orbi device hardwired to the Spectrum router in the main house, and another one on the back of that same house, which (I think is providing the connection to the back house). This was the situation when I arrived. She recently purchased the side house, which already had a Spectrum set up. It has its own router, but it's fairly weak at the rear house, so she thought the Airport Express with its extender might be better. When I said that didn't work, I meant that I didn't know how to make it work. But later, my daughter called Apple and was walked through the set up of the Airport Express system and it works OK, with a somewhat stronger signal than that from the main house.

Regarding the TV, there is no traditional Cable TV service, it's only using Netflix or other internet-based streaming service. In addition, the side house doesn't have that (no TV display).

Regarding powerline connectivity, all three house are on different services.

So, the only thing left to do is to improve the service from the main house and eliminate the second Spectrum account. I think the best thing would be to run Ethernet cables between the houses, but she doesn't want to do that.

Thanks for all your advice.

Adding an Airport Express doesn't make much sense, as it doesn't properly integrate with the mesh network that the Orbi provides. Instead, you should try to add additional Orbi Satellites. Unfortunately, these consumer products are somewhat limited in what they can do. If you can string ethernet wires between the buildings, things will work a lot better (and yes, even then, you should stick with just a single ecosystem and not mix-n-match devices from different product lines).

Your multi-building configuration is more complex than any of these devices are really meant for. It might work. But you are pushing the limits of this technology. So, in the end, you might need a professional installation of a higher-end product. The Unifi product line is a good compromise. It's more expensive than typical consumer products, but it is about an order of magnitude cheaper than other devices targeted for commercial installation; and they work really well once you have set them up correctly. Initial installation does take more effort though.

A main house, a rear house, and a side house. The main house has an Orbi router and an Orbi satellite at the back of it. The rear house needs to get a signal from one of the others. The side house has its own Spectrum connection, so the issue is a signal to the rear house. Is that how it is?

Maybe I'm still missing some detail but if you added an Orbi satellite in the rear house, it might provide a good signal from the main house, assuming the existing Orbi router or satellite in the main house and the satellite in the rear house are reasonably close and line of sight with few or no walls in between. There's plenty of bandwidth in a Orbi system to handle several different video streams simultaneously.

Or, get two high gain antennae to transmit across the outside gap, maybe from the side house to the rear house. While many routers have sockets to connect external antennae, my Orbi (RBR50) doesn't.

One last thing, that confused me again and in your original comment. You said:

"There is an Orbi device hardwired to the Spectrum router "

Hopefully you mean a Spectrum MODEM, not a router, because the Orbi itself is a router and you can't have two routers on the same network. If the Spectrum device is a combo modem/router, you need to access it internally and be sure that DHCP is turned off. If unclear how to do that or how to check, contact Spectrum.

What I would do:

1. Install WiFi Analyzer app on your cellphone.
2. Turn off all network equipment in the SIDE house.
3. Turn off the Orbi Satellite in the BACK house.
4. Connect the Orbi AC3000 Router to the Spectrum modem in the MAIN house. Position the Orbi Router as close to both the BACK house and SIDE house as possible.*
5. Connect a laptop to the Orbi Router with an ethernet cable.
6. On a laptop, browse to http://www.speedtest.net and verify that the Internet speed is as expected.
7. Disconnect the laptop's network cable from the Orbi Router.
8. Connect the laptop to the Orbi Router via wi-fi.
9. Browse to http://www.speedtest.net and verify that the Internet speed remains as expected.
10. Use WiFi Analyzer to check that the wi-fi signal is acceptably strong where needed in MAIN house.
11. Install one Orbi Satellite in the BACK house as close as possible to the Orbi Router in the MAIN house.*
12. Check WiFi Analyzer from inside BACK house. Also run speedtest.
13. Install a second Orbi Satellite in the SIDE house as close as possible to the Orbi Router in the MAIN house.*
14. Check WiFi Analyzer from inside SIDE house. Also run speedtest.

Do not use Ubiquiti's Unfi. It is far too complex for home use by a non-technical user.

*minimize walls, floors, and distance between Orbi devices.

Orbi is a great solution, if it works for you. That's why I suggested trying that first.

But if you live in a similarly densely populated area as I do, you'll quickly hit it's limits. I can't even get a reliable mesh network to span across multiple floors, let alone to a neighboring building.

That's when prosumer solutions like Unifi come into play. Initial configuration is difficult. But if done correctly, you shouldn't need to touch it again. Pay a professional who has done this type of work before, or find an enthusiastic college kid who wants to dig into a new challenge