Options for boosting wifi signal across 2 floors

PaulMTC

PaulMTC

PaulMTC

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Joined
9 Jan 2006
Posts
59
Hi all,

I live in a 3 level house. It’s an old stone built house.

My wireless router is on the top floor. I barely get a signal in my basement level – some places there is no signal.

What are my best options to boost this signal?

I don’t think I can use the “Homeplug” solution as my basement electrical circuit is linked to a separate fuse box etc. from the rest of my house (the basement conversion was put in the house at a later date). Can I test this somehow before buying the Homeplug kit?

Options I have been thinking about:

• Can I just by a bigger more powerful antenna? I have a belkin router at the moment that has 3 little antenna on it. How would that work – would I replace all of these antennas with 3 bigger ones?

• Just buy a new router with more powerful wifi transmission (my one was is a fairly decent belkin one that I bought about 3-4 years ago)

• Get some sort of booster that I put on the middle floor that picks up the wifi signal from top floor and transmits to basement floor

Any suggestions on this are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul.
 
Option 3 for sure. I've used all 3 methods in the past and it's the only one that's really worked. I used a linksys router with custom firmware, it worked like a charm and wasn't expensive
 
Thanks a lot Zap.

Could you be more specific (for the uninitiated!) about what I would need to buy and do.

Do I just buy another normal router – say Linksys?

Or is it better to use belkin as that’s what my current one is?

What is the custom firmware and where do I get it?

Paul.
 
This is a little convoluted, but could you run a CAT5e cable from the basement to the bottom floor, then use a homeplug from there to the top floor?
 
What I did, for the basement in my friends place was tuck cat5 cable behind the skirting board, not practical but beats drilling.
 
Just had a thought about a potential solution using Homeplug …..

• I would have a Homeplug plugged into a wall socket next to my wifi router on the top floor (HOMEPLUG 1)
• I would run a CAT5e cable from my wifi router to HOMEPLUG 1
• I would have another Homeplug plugged into a wall socket on the ground floor (HOMEPLUG 2). This would be a Homeplug with a wifi transmitter on it
• I would then be able to pick up a wifi signal in my basement from HOMEPLUG2 as it is only has to travel to the floor below

….. would this work?

Thanks,

Paul.
 
PaulMTC said:
Just had a thought about a potential solution using Homeplug …..

• I would have a Homeplug plugged into a wall socket next to my wifi router on the top floor (HOMEPLUG 1)
• I would run a CAT5e cable from my wifi router to HOMEPLUG 1
• I would have another Homeplug plugged into a wall socket on the ground floor (HOMEPLUG 2). This would be a Homeplug with a wifi transmitter on it
• I would then be able to pick up a wifi signal in my basement from HOMEPLUG2 as it is only has to travel to the floor below

….. would this work?

Thanks,

Paul.
Click to expand...

If i'm understand what you're saying you would have 2 wireless access points which are wired together with homeplugs? This will work better than using option 3 as option 3 will only give you half the bandwidth because it's having to receive and transmit at the same time.

Your new solution is the method I use at home and it works well. To keep things simple you can set the same SSID and WPA key and the wireless device will connect to the access point with the strongest signal. If you do this it's best to use different channels.

Option 3 does work well though if you find it's not practical to wire both access points so let me know if you need more information on that
 
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