Consistent Wifi within a large house - same Access Point possible?

gypsymoth

gypsymoth

gypsymoth

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7 Nov 2011
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Hi all

I'm experiencing inconsistent wifi / possible contention within my house and looking for a bit of advice. I'll summarise my current setup:

-- Fibre service comes into my cellar, modem (Openreach) located there, as if my router (Netgear Nighthawk). Router transmits 2 networks - 2.4 and 5g with different names (lets call them Network1 and Network2). Would be tricky to move router to a higher floor.

-- Modem connected to a gigabit switch, with Cat6 cabling coming out of it and distributed throughout my 4 storey house. Various gigabit switches dotted around house and connected to devices to provide fastest connection possible

-- Apple Airport in kitchen fed with Cat6 wired connection - transmits a different network name (Network 3).

-- Bedroom in loft struggled to get the wifi from the ground floor (Networks 1, 2 or 3), so using a netgear extender, transmitting a different network (Network 4).

It's a bit of a mishmash, but it kind of works. What's my issue then?

-- As we move thru the house, constantly need to change network on devices
-- Devices - when switched on - sometimes connect to the network with the worst signal, ie: you're on the ground floor and your phone connects to Network 4 in the loft
-- I have Sonos and it has dropouts in the loft
-- Recently bought Philips Hue bulbs that performance very inconsistently. Apparently they create their own Mesh network but suspect there's interference. Hue Hub connected to wired connection

Questions:

-- Is it possible to have the same network name throughout the house? Would devices find this confusing when connecting
-- How can I diagnose potential channel conflicts?
-- Any suggestions for fixing my Hue issues?
-- Should I dump the Netgear Nighthawk and get something else?

Sorry for the long post - tried to be brief!

Thanks
 
Short answer - buy Ubiquiti APs! Something like the UAP-AC-LITE (or LR, or PRO models)... You will find several other posters come in soon and echo this as well.

You could probably make do with 2 either side of your house ceiling mounted, dependant on how many floors you have, age of house and wall thickness etc.

They seem to be one of the only wireless networking gear, which has a 'seamless handover' to devices.

I would retest the whole Sonos and Hue bulbs when you have a more reliant network in place.
 
You should have the same network name (SSID) and matching security for them all. There are times when you'd deliberately use different SSIDs but this isn't one of them. It'll cost nothing to try and there's then some chance that devices will roam in a sensible way.

For channel conflicts install suitable software on a mobile device and wander around. I use Acrylic Wi-Fi Home on a Windows 10 laptop. There's similar software available for most platforms excluding iOS.

The UniFi APs are a good option. Be prepared to install as many as prove necessary as one isn't always going to cut it. Use the forum search before asking all of the obvious questions as they've been done to death.

You should also look into the various wireless mesh systems which are now available (e.g. Google Wifi). Loads of existing posts about them on here as well.
 
I went for Google mesh, felt like it was the best plug and play option (trio setup.)

I too was having issues with SONOS.

Devices seem to all connect to the strongest point.
 
For the Sonos, connect one of the speakers via an ethernet cable, then turn all the other devices on after that one has booted. Your Sonos system will switch to Boost mode - means the speakers all connect together via their own mesh network (pretty sure this is on another frequency than 2.4Ghz although not sure), and they'll connect to your network via that one ethernet cable. No load on your wifi as a result!

Otherwise - yep, try the same SSID / security etc on all the access points.
 
At my parents house which is a large bungalow we have CAT6 cabling installed throughout the loft and I have used the Ubiquiti routers and bridged them so it just shows 1 SSID throughout the house and left them in the loft space pointing down in different sections of the house.
 
Do you have a consistent loft space over all of the rooms? Another angle to get at other than a Unifi or bunch of Unifi AP's would be to look at radiating co-ax cable (leaky feeder). It's an animal to work with if you get the "proper" directional stuff but once you have you can stick a huge amount of output dB into it (31 or 32dB I think) legally and it gives fantastic coverage to anything under it's coverage area. Cheap enough to buy as well. You'd want something like a Ubiquiti Bullet2 or MikroTik Metal to drive it and stick an inline amp to make sure it pushes out max power. Great solution if you want a "single" antenna though.
 
I ran a bit of Cat6 through my mothers house and purchased a couple of second hand Billion 7800N routers and use them as APs. Flawless WiFi roaming using the same SSID and key.
 
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