I have very thick concrete walls, so wifi for smartphones doesn't work very well. It's unpredictable. It's also partly because the Sky router I have is pretty poor for wifi.
When I'm eating breakfast in the kitchen or in the living room I find the signal is troublesome to say the least.
I'm quite conscious of electricity costs, and I'm trying to find out the cheapest, most effective way that isn't going to add to my bills. I'm a little bit funny about money and I prefer paying up front for more efficiency rather than having a slightly higher bill.
Here's a diagram to help explain things..
There is no HTPC yet - I'm waiting for IB dual cores later in the year.
I had cat6 buried in the walls, however there's just two cables. Both from the router switch, one to the HTPC and one to the server.
There's three options I could think of...
1) Replace the Sky router. I've all but ruled this out as it would be expensive and when I switch to fibre it may be obsolete.
2) Add a router/repeater/something in the living room. I know almost nothing about these, and my concern is that if I put it in the living room it may not cover the kitchen well.. or if I put it in the kitchen...
3) Add a wireless card to the server. It runs Debian... could the server act as an wireless access point with just a wifi card? To me that seems like the cheapest option both for electricity and cost. The server is always on. I've no idea if it's possible to do this, and if it can be done easily in Debian.
When I'm eating breakfast in the kitchen or in the living room I find the signal is troublesome to say the least.
I'm quite conscious of electricity costs, and I'm trying to find out the cheapest, most effective way that isn't going to add to my bills. I'm a little bit funny about money and I prefer paying up front for more efficiency rather than having a slightly higher bill.
Here's a diagram to help explain things..
There is no HTPC yet - I'm waiting for IB dual cores later in the year.
I had cat6 buried in the walls, however there's just two cables. Both from the router switch, one to the HTPC and one to the server.
There's three options I could think of...
1) Replace the Sky router. I've all but ruled this out as it would be expensive and when I switch to fibre it may be obsolete.
2) Add a router/repeater/something in the living room. I know almost nothing about these, and my concern is that if I put it in the living room it may not cover the kitchen well.. or if I put it in the kitchen...
3) Add a wireless card to the server. It runs Debian... could the server act as an wireless access point with just a wifi card? To me that seems like the cheapest option both for electricity and cost. The server is always on. I've no idea if it's possible to do this, and if it can be done easily in Debian.
