Increasing Wireless signal to 3 floor house

Soldato
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Hello,
Am buying a new build property that is 3 floors. Hub will be on the bottom floor but majority of wireless devices will be on 1st and 2nd floor.

Should I buy Wi-Fi extenders or Powerline Wi-Fi adapters bearing in mind its a new build so the electric cables 'should' be good and stable.

Also what options do people recommend. Netflix 4k will probably be the most demanding activity on the upper floors.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Soldato
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Run a cable to each floor, anything less is going to be problematic sooner or later. From this you can add an AP and/or switch.
 
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Associate
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Maybe in the 1970's but today we have systems like Orbi, Tenda MW6 and Google Wifi any of these will be more than adequate
 
Soldato
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Maybe in the 1970's but today we have systems like Orbi, Tenda MW6 and Google Wifi any of these will be more than adequate

That's almost funny :) Try moving 10,000 small files or for that matter 10TB via wifi and then tell me what the 1970's feel like ;) Copper cable will do symetrical gigabit 24/7/365 with predictable latency and a clear upgrade path to 10Gb, your wifi toys will do neither and are at the mercy of both the structure of the building and external interference from microwaves, cordless phones and other peoples wifi toys. Perhaps if you just 'like' things on facebook or post 'LOL' a lot then what you describe is an acceptable solution, for everyone else it's a convenience for devices that are portable, low bandwidth (eg IoT) or devices that can't otherwise communicate with a network and are not latency/bandwidth sensitive. I say that as someone who runs two a full Unifi AP set-up, it's not a replacement for a wired connection and the most it's used for is streaming to media devices that lack a wired connection option, everything else gets wired.
 

~cw

~cw

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Run a cable to each floor, anything less is going to be problematic sooner or later. From this you can add an AP and/or switch.

This +1 million. Flat I moved into has terrible wifi speeds mere metres from the router. Using powerline adapters was a temporary stopgap but even they are only capable of about 40 mbits (theoretically capable of 100, perhaps in a perfect world).

I gave up and just ran CAT5 around the skirting board to a small Netgear prosafe in the living room. Boom, full speeds. I hung an old router set to AP mode purely for wifi range extension and now everything is grand.

Upshot: smart TV hates connecting over wifi, even when it's sat in the same room as the router. Tried numerous routers, Samsung apparently put the worst performing chipset and drivers into Tigen OS. Give it a wired connection: perfect every time, I can max its 100mbit port out on Speedtest (well, the CPU maxes out first).


If you can, trunk some decent shielded CAT6 to every floor. Hang gig switches off those, then you can add whatever wifi repeaters you want and upgrade them in future. All of these mesh networks, wifi repeater kits and so forth are a waste of time and money. Some do double NATting (highly undesirable) unless they're installed as the primary router on the internet connection, and some are overpriced twaddle.

If you're going to get homeplugs, be prepared to spend big bucks - the cheap ones won't manage the speeds you'll expect from a wired connection. Until I dredged out my spare 25 metre CAT5 from the attic, I'd been hovering over the buy button on some TP-Link PA9020s for a while purely because they allegedly are MIMO so hopefully can attain better throughput than the cheaper units.

Costing it though, the time involved in running some cable (if you can tuck it out of the way, or perhaps under carpets etc) is well worth it. I'd rather spend some time and £10 on ethernet cable instead of £100+ on homeplugs with no guarantee of throughput.
 
Soldato
OP
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Thanks for all the replies.

Unfortunately, hard wiring isn't an option so it will have to be some kind of Mesh network or powerline. Away from the main router only needs about 25MB max (4k on Netflix but 1080p will be fine).

Anyone used the Tenda Nova Mesh set? Seems to have decent reviews and a lot cheaper than most others.
 
Associate
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Thanks for all the replies.

Unfortunately, hard wiring isn't an option so it will have to be some kind of Mesh network or powerline. Away from the main router only needs about 25MB max (4k on Netflix but 1080p will be fine).

Anyone used the Tenda Nova Mesh set? Seems to have decent reviews and a lot cheaper than most others.

Why is not an option ? like some of the posts have said, I was like most people wasted years and £s to get good Internet to the other side of the house and outbuildings I give up, it cost me £20 and a hours work, drilling a few holes through the wall of house layer the cables connected the plugs done.

Done no more buffering disconnects it just done 1 hour I say 1 hour lol

Man up lol
 
Soldato
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Nothing to do with manning up. Some devices used on the top floor are wireless only plus I don't want to be drilling through floors due to the underfloor heating.

Will just get a mesh setup I guess.
 
Soldato
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Nothing to do with manning up. Some devices used on the top floor are wireless only plus I don't want to be drilling through floors due to the underfloor heating.

Will just get a mesh setup I guess.

If you read my reply I made the point that you could plug an AP/Switch in if you ran cables to each floor, that would solve your 'wifi only' issues. Underfloor heating on anything above ground floor is unusual, it certainly doesn't preclude cable access - your builder will have surely provided duct work and/or access panels as appropriate, either use those or go external.
 
Associate
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Nothing to do with manning up. Some devices used on the top floor are wireless only plus I don't want to be drilling through floors due to the underfloor heating.

Will just get a mesh setup I guess.

If you read my post ,I did not mention anything about drilling the floor, I personally would not do that either incase the heating pipework is there lol, I meant drill through the wall run cable up wall then drill back through wall lol.
 
Soldato
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Personally I find powerline adapters to be amazing - I have a server on our 3rd floor and stream 1080p content through the adapters to my TV in the living room without any issues whatsoever!

Yes I'd agree that cabling is better if it's feasible but if not powerline is the next best option imo!
 
Soldato
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If it is a new build, I would be asking for a couple of cables to be run also. At least get it done before the painters and decorators are in finishing off snagging etc.
I'm currently cabling my existing house so it makes it a bit harder with moving furniture etc. Not impossible just a bit time consuming. So far I've managed to do the whole downstairs in a couple of hours utilising under floor panels and through walls as I don't like cables showing.
Other than that, I guess powerline may be an option but they caused too much interference on my VDSL connection halfing it in a matter of hours.
 
Soldato
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Personally I find powerline adapters to be amazing - I have a server on our 3rd floor and stream 1080p content through the adapters to my TV in the living room without any issues whatsoever!

Yes I'd agree that cabling is better if it's feasible but if not powerline is the next best option imo!

1080p is not a recognised measure of data throughout :D

Problem tends to be that each house is different, each floors sockets/lights should be on dedicated breakers and have RCD’s in a modern install. Anything that needs to travel from one circuit to another takes a performance hit and it really can vary significantly.
 

~cw

~cw

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If you're going to go mesh, don't waste money on inadequate options - Ubiquiti or bust. Perhaps lob in a Mikrotik if you're feeling fancy ;)
 

~cw

~cw

Associate
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1x Ruckus R310 will easily cover that house

Ubiquiti doesn’t have the range, you would need 2 maybe 3 APs and cabling.

UniFI stuff works 5 gig band just fine on n-spec. UniFI AP-Pros can do 300 mbit, 2x2 MIMO on 5 gig and 3x3 MIMO 2.4 GHz. Ruckus stuff is also fine. I've stayed in places using some of their smaller residential / hotel APs - tbh I thought performance was on-par. Range was good but throughput fell off just like any other AP given conditions, not especially long distance compared with other APs. I guess their higher-end stuff has the superior antenna design and radios.

Last I read Ruckus licensing is frustrating, unless you go 'Unleashed' and then subscribe to maintenance contract for updates, support etc.

Aerohive and Meraki also possible choices? I guess providers' products come with various licensing implications if you want all the goodies.

I guess it'll boil down to cost over outright network performance. the Ruckus stuff is a lot dearer than UniFi! And if you want one AP per floor, prepare to shell out a month's wages on APs... £500 per AP for an Unleashed R510; UniFi AC-Pro for £130 each from Amazon or the UAP-AC-PRO-E for £225.

Ruckus can do very well, much better than UniFi in some situations. In some tests, UniFi stuff does better. Generous pinch of salt required.
 
Caporegime
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I love threads like these. OP states he wants a wi-fi solution. People say run cables. OP says he doesn't want to or can't run cables. People post again saying run cables. He doesn't need maximum throughput and isn't transferring thousands of small files or even a few large ones, it's Netflix FFS. Try a set of powerlines first but make sure all the plug sockets are on the same ring main otherwise performance will either be terrible or you'll get no throughput at all.
 
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