My Actiontec modem is located on the ground level, tucked away in a laundry room and because the way my house was pre-wired I cannot move it to a different location. My dilemma is that the wifi sucks on the second and third floors, especially for my iPad and iPhone. Would it help, if possible, to a wifi router and have it located on the second/third floor and just use if for mobile devices? Or is there a better solution?
Sure, it's possible.
Can I use my wireless or an extra router along with the Verizon provided router
That assumes you can run cat5 to the 2nd or 3rd floor.
Another option, if you have coax running to the 2nd or 3rd floor:
I do have cat5 going to the second and third floor. Should I just turn off the wifi on the primary router and use it just for wired devices and use the secondary router for wifi devices? Also, would getting a wireless n router improve performance or does it really matter?
I second the motion to getting APs for one of both of the floors and directly wiring it to Ethernet. Wireless N or Wireless G, the speed difference will be a lot better roaming onto nearby APs over connecting to the ActionTec on a weak signal.
There are a few things you need to keep in mind with Wireless N. In order to make use of the Wireless N speeds, the devices need to support Wireless N. Wireless G and Wireless B devices will cause the access point to run at slower speeds. Second, WPA2-PSK AES must be used on devices. Disabling Mixed Mode security that uses WPA and WPA2 is the best way to ensure devices use WPA2. Third, WMM Quality of Service must be enabled on the Wireless in order to make use of the speeds. These settings will help to ensure you're getting the most out of N. A fouth note for N, is that on the 2.4Ghz band I would strongly suggest against using 40Mhz "Wide" mode. Doing so will give you more speed, but it also puts you in a position for additional interference from other networks nearby/APs in your home. It can also reduce the stable range of the network and cause issues with non-N devices. 20Mhz 2.4Ghz is the only mode supported in the full Wireless N Specification. 40Mhz is outlined as a Draft mode.
You can be creative on how to set it up. The best way to set up the APs is to run them on different channels (Channels 1, 6, or 11) to ensure they don't interfere with each other. For roaming, you would want to ensure each of the APs run on the same SSID and run on the same security key. Roaming won't be as smooth as multi-AP setups ran by an AP Controller, but if set up correctly it should be pretty seamless.
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