Getting WiFi through concrete floors?

stockhausen

stockhausen

stockhausen

Capodecina
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30 Jul 2006
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The Scenario:
A four storey block containing about 30 apartments; concrete floors & brick walls. Reception and various offices on the ground floor. Reception has Internet access and a WiFi Access Point, allegedly offering free WiFi. Good reception in the lobby; poor reception on the 1st floor; VERY poor reception on the 2nd floor; no reception at all higher up.
​

The problem:
How best without cabling to provide reasonable WiFi reception throughout the building.​


Any suggestions?
 
Personally I would say get some Cat 5e/6 and wire them up to access points to each floor, considering the use. Powerline is a good idea but you will be very limited with the speed it syncs at.

Be sure to put each access point in different wireless channels to ensure they don't negatively affect each other. They can use the nsame name/password however.
 
ANDARIAL said:
Maybe powerline networking?
You know the ones with cable from router into plug into socket
Then on the other floor powerline socket with wifi built in (maybe one on each floor or in each office?)
Click to expand...
Powerline is certainly one possibility I have considered. With decent plugs, speed ought not to be an issue since we are only talking about making free Internet access via WiFi available to apartment guests. The concern here is related to how the fuse boxes are wired up - there MUST be three phases involved.

Orcvader said:
Personally I would say get some Cat 5e/6 and wire them up to access points to each floor, considering the use. Powerline is a good idea but you will be very limited with the speed it syncs at.

Be sure to put each access point in different wireless channels to ensure they don't negatively affect each other. They can use the same name/password however.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately cabling whilst the obvious solution is likely to be impractical because of the nature of the building and French fire regulations. The one vague possibility is if I can get access to the lift shaft or inter-floor service shaft. This would allow me to place WiFi access points on each floor and was what I was hoping to get advice on. Thanks for your suggestion about using different channels, I guess I would have to use different SSIDs as well?
 
Nope, they can be the same SSID as well.

Hmm... that's a bit tricky if the only way to cable it is via the lift shaft. I suppose multiple wireless repeaters will work as well but that will probably add some considerable latency.
 
I'm surprised the signal goes through the floor at all when you consider it will be a reinforced slab. Using wireless as the backhaul for access points works fine but to be comfortable with it you really want each AP to be able to see the other, not have a weak signal to work with.

If you're going to do this properly you want at least one AP per floor and a controller. Or something like a few Meraki/Aerohive APs with the cloud controllers.
 
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