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seankay
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Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Fri Sep 16, 2016 2:36 am

I am using the biggest router I could find for my home but still the strength of network is weak on the ground floor. My home has 2 floors and the router is setup on the 1st floor. I have two possible work around. One is to use another router and setup the same network on each floor (connect both routers wirelessly or with wire? is it possible?) The second is to use a signal booster. Will it help  me?
 
Redocbew
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Fri Sep 16, 2016 3:06 am

If you're able to run a cable from one router to the other, then you could setup the secondary router in access point mode. If not, then you might want to look at power line networking as an alternative.
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Fri Sep 16, 2016 10:15 am

Hey,
 there are some weird adapters that you plug in the electric box (sorry don't know the word in English) where you plug your toaster. You plug one close to the router and one to the room with the device (pc, tablet...) you want to give access. I can't find a picture of this things, but may be one of you can find it online. 
They really exist.
 
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Fri Sep 16, 2016 12:08 pm

Yes, this is the "powerline networking" that Redocbew referred to. Also see the front page article from almost a year ago http://techreport.com/blog/29108/mixing ... toxicating
 
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Fri Sep 16, 2016 12:58 pm

You can get away with using a wireless repeater, but in the long run you will be much happier if you can get a physical connection up to a secondary access point, either via cat5/6 or something like powerline networking.
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Fri Sep 16, 2016 1:01 pm

I've been extremely happy with my Ubiquiti wireless gear. I have a couple of AC Pro access points, and clients roam between them seamlessly.

You will want to install the network controller software on something low maintenance and reliable. A Raspberry Pi or Odroid works great.
 
ozzuneoj
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Fri Sep 16, 2016 1:12 pm

Bulk cat5e ethernet cable, keystone wall plates and a punch-down tool are quite inexpensive compared to other methods of getting your network to cover a whole house.

You can get 500 feet for around $30 on eBay and it usually comes with a crimp tool too if you want to make your own patch cables.

If you only need a couple wall plates, the cable and the tool, it should cost less than $50. If you are totally unfamiliar with running cable through walls and don't know anyone who is (or you just don't have the time), then it gets less appealing of course. When we had some of the electric wiring and outlets updated in our house I had the electricians run ethernet from the only central (second floor) room with a cable connection, with a wall plate leading to the attic apartment and one going down to the first floor. I'm far from a networking expert but everything I connect to this network, even through switches and wall plates reliably autonegotiates to 1Gbps speed (using the bulk eBay Cat5e cable I bought), which is a lot better than what I get from wifi, and we are using a pretty beefy router (Netgear R7500v2). Its nice to have at least one connection on each floor that will be hard wired to our router.

Having played with routers in "repeater" mode, I would highly advise against using repeaters. It was only "just" reliable enough to tolerate, and it killed our throughput. We didn't do that for very long.
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seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 1:45 am

Redocbew wrote:
If you're able to run a cable from one router to the other, then you could setup the secondary router in access point mode.  If not, then you might want to look at power line networking as an alternative.

First of all sorry for late reply everyone. Have been busy in work!
Anyways, Thanks redocbew. Running a cable from one router to another is not an issue but it will be all wire thing at my place then. Do you prefer using a power line adapter over this wired method?
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 1:45 am

Informai wrote:
Hey,
 there are some weird adapters that you plug in the electric box (sorry don't know the word in English) where you plug your toaster. You plug one close to the router and one to the room with the device (pc, tablet...) you want to give access. I can't find a picture of this things, but may be one of you can find it online. 
They really exist.

Are you talking about powerline adapters?
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 1:48 am

notfred wrote:
Yes, this is the "powerline networking" that Redocbew referred to. Also see the front page article from almost a year ago http://techreport.com/blog/29108/mixing ... toxicating

Thanks a lot for the link. It seems that having a powerline adapter is the solution. Will it be powerful enough to extend my coverage on both floors fully?
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 1:51 am

SuperSpy wrote:
You can get away with using a wireless repeater, but in the long run you will be much happier if you can get a physical connection up to a secondary access point, either via cat5/6 or something like powerline networking.

Honestly, I seem to find Wored setup more comfortable cause powerline networking is a new thing for me. But powerline definitely is making me wanna go for it. What do you prefer between the two?
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 1:52 am

Buub wrote:
I've been extremely happy with my Ubiquiti wireless gear.  I have a couple of AC Pro access points, and clients roam between them seamlessly.

You will want to install the network controller software on something low maintenance and reliable.  A Raspberry Pi or Odroid works great.

Is it similar to powerline networking via a power line adapter?
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 1:56 am

ozzuneoj wrote:
Bulk cat5e ethernet cable, keystone wall plates and a punch-down tool are quite inexpensive compared to other methods of getting your network to cover a whole house.

You can get 500 feet for around $30 on eBay and it usually comes with a crimp tool too if you want to make your own patch cables.

If you only need a couple wall plates, the cable and the tool, it should cost less than $50. If you are totally unfamiliar with running cable through walls and don't know anyone who is (or you just don't have the time), then it gets less appealing of course. When we had some of the electric wiring and outlets updated in our house I had the electricians run ethernet from the only central (second floor) room with a cable connection, with a wall plate leading to the attic apartment and one going down to the first floor. I'm far from a networking expert but everything I connect to this network, even through switches and wall plates reliably autonegotiates to 1Gbps speed (using the bulk eBay Cat5e cable I bought), which is a lot better than what I get from wifi, and we are using a pretty beefy router (Netgear R7500v2). Its nice to have at least one connection on each floor that will be hard wired to our router.

Having played with routers in "repeater" mode, I would highly advise against using repeaters. It was only "just" reliable enough to tolerate, and it killed our throughput. We didn't do that for very long.

Thanks a lot for the advise. I appreciate it a lot. Wonder how much time did it take and is it a DIY thing or an expert is a necessity for the wired setup? I think I can manage it but won't be able to make the wires disappear or look good at my place!
Plus, can I know more about this the repeater mode? Should I use repeater mode on second router or all routers?
 
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:14 am

Buub wrote:
I've been extremely happy with my Ubiquiti wireless gear. I have a couple of AC Pro access points, and clients roam between them seamlessly.

You will want to install the network controller software on something low maintenance and reliable. A Raspberry Pi or Odroid works great.


I was going to recommend ubiquiti also. You can run them controllerless also. We replaced our router with one and my in-laws and it has beedn rock-solid.
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:19 am

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
Buub wrote:
I've been extremely happy with my Ubiquiti wireless gear.  I have a couple of AC Pro access points, and clients roam between them seamlessly.

You will want to install the network controller software on something low maintenance and reliable.  A Raspberry Pi or Odroid works great.


I was going to recommend ubiquiti also. You can run them controllerless also. We replaced our router with one and my in-laws and it has beedn rock-solid.

Are you using their powerline adapter?
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:20 am

Guys, are these really the best power-line adapters or do you have any other suggestions?
http://www.cnet.com/topics/networking/b ... -adapters/
 
notfred
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:58 am

If you can run Cat5 or better then use that and go with a direct wired setup. The powerline setup is for those scenarios where for some reason it is impossible to run Cat5 from one floor to another so it uses the power wires to transport the signal.
 
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 8:54 am

I needed to extend my range to the back deck of the house, and I picked up one of these

http://www.netgear.com/home/products/ne ... ar_organic
https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Wi-Fi-Ex ... RS44D&th=1

It was easy to setup and solved the issue I had.  I just do some light surfing on a tablet and stream music.   Not sure what your needs are.
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:02 am

An alternative to powerline Ethernet is using MoCA adapters, which operate over unused TV cabling instead.
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 11:19 am

A powerline adapter will definitely be better than wireless access points in repeater mode (unless you have significant interference). However, they will not come anywhere close to gigabit speeds. Your best bet is still cat5e/cat6 network cable, which will let you run full speed. But if that's not an option, powerline "will do".
 
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 11:20 am

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
Buub wrote:
I've been extremely happy with my Ubiquiti wireless gear. I have a couple of AC Pro access points, and clients roam between them seamlessly.

You will want to install the network controller software on something low maintenance and reliable. A Raspberry Pi or Odroid works great.


I was going to recommend ubiquiti also. You can run them controllerless also. We replaced our router with one and my in-laws and it has beedn rock-solid.

Sure, you can if you have a single unit. But the controller software is fantastic, especially if you have multiple access points, and double especially if you buy some of their other network gear (like the USG). It all integrates together, provides very pretty and useful network graphs, etc. Pretty exceptional stuff for the price.
 
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 12:33 pm

bthylafh wrote:
An alternative to powerline Ethernet is using MoCA adapters, which operate over unused TV cabling instead.

I can vouch for this being a great option! I have everything in my house wired with MoCA 2.0, it's (often) faster and more reliable than powerline networking but also more expensive. MoCA 1.0/1.1 adapters are a lot cheaper and might be a good option for extending wireless if you don't need more than ~90 Mbit/s. If you have coax on both ends I definitely recommend looking into this. Also, if you don't use satellite TV you can have both MoCA and an HD TV signal on the same cable
 
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Mon Sep 19, 2016 3:29 pm

I second the suggestions of using MoCA for unused coax lines. I use it myself, with a Ubiquity Unify product as the endpoint.
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Tue Sep 20, 2016 2:46 am

notfred wrote:
If you can run Cat5 or better then use that and go with a direct wired setup. The powerline setup is for those scenarios where for some reason it is impossible to run Cat5 from one floor to another so it uses the power wires to transport the signal.

Thanks a lot, but for that I might have to call the experts in :(
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Tue Sep 20, 2016 2:47 am

Fogg wrote:
I needed to extend my range to the back deck of the house, and I picked up one of these

http://www.netgear.com/home/products/ne ... ar_organic
https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Wi-Fi-Ex ... RS44D&th=1

It was easy to setup and solved the issue I had.  I just do some light surfing on a tablet and stream music.   Not sure what your needs are.

Thanks a lot. Looking at them right now and hope it won't effect my speed very much!
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Tue Sep 20, 2016 2:48 am

bthylafh wrote:
An alternative to powerline Ethernet is using MoCA adapters, which operate over unused TV cabling instead.

Is it similar to power-line networking?
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Tue Sep 20, 2016 2:50 am

Thanks guys for the suggestions and recommendations. I really appreciate it. It seems like I should not be lazy anymore and go get an expert to tell me the estimate about wired setup as most of you suggest it to be better than anything. Will keep you guys updated about it. Hopefully it will be in my budget :)
 
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Tue Sep 20, 2016 3:21 am

seankay wrote:
bthylafh wrote:
An alternative to powerline Ethernet is using MoCA adapters, which operate over unused TV cabling instead.

Is it similar to power-line networking?

it is similar in the sense that you use existing cables to do your networking instead of pulling new cables. If you have TV plugs in both rooms where you need them, it's as simple as buying 2 MoCA adapters (you can often buy a pair as a kit), plugging them in on both sides, plugging the power and networking cables in and you're done. If you also use any of the TV plugs in your home to watch TV it can get more complex because the TV signal might get too weak. If you use satellite TV, MoCA won't work. If you buy a MoCA adapter with built-in wireless, you'll have to configure the wireless settings of course.

My wireless for example is just an old wireless router that I put in access point mode (so it's no longer a router, just a wireless access point) and I plugged the MoCA adapter and my PC into it. The actual ISP router in my utility closet is also connected to a MoCA adapter, as are the 2 other PCs. My HDTV is connected to the filtered output of the MoCA adapter that connects my HTPC to the network, that output filters out everything in the satellite/MoCA frequencies and only lets the regular cable TV frequencies through. It took a bit of fiddling to set the cable amplifier just right so that the cable TV signal came through strong enough. All in all though, using the coax for my home networking means that I have a rock stable 450 Mbit/s connection between all my devices and my internet router. The newest MoCA 2.0 adapters are even faster, roughly 800 Mbit/s. The 2 downsides to MoCA are the cost of the adapters (more expensive than powerline adapters) and the latency, which is about 3ms or similar from what you get with a wireless connection.

Powerline networking is similar in that you also need to buy an adapter for each spot where you want your network wired. The big problem with them is that their effectiveness really depends on how the power in your home is wired, the powerline adapters need to be on the same circuit to reach their advertized speeds. For example, in my home the rooms on the upper floor are all on the same circuit so plugging in an adapter in one room and another makes for an excellent connection, fast and stable (more than 100 Mbit/s at least, less than 1ms latency). But the sockets in my utility closet are on another circuit, so if I plugged in a powerline adapter in there to connect my internet router, the connection from that adapter to the others was terrible, only about 3 Mbit/s. How good or bad it is for you depends highly on the layout and how well everything is wired, and probably also on what kind of breaker panel/breakers you have. If you have a home with very old wiring it will probably be slow and/or unstable.
 
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Tue Sep 20, 2016 3:43 am

You could try something like Eero. Instead of a single large wifi access point that tries to cover the entire building, you get several of them that form a mesh network. 
 
seankay
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Re: Suggestions to extended my wireless network at home?

Tue Sep 20, 2016 4:28 am

Firestarter wrote:

it is similar in the sense that you use existing cables to do your networking instead of pulling new cables. If you have TV plugs in both rooms where you need them, it's as simple as buying 2 MoCA adapters (you can often buy a pair as a kit), plugging them in on both sides, plugging the power and networking cables in and you're done. If you also use any of the TV plugs in your home to watch TV it can get more complex because the TV signal might get too weak. If you use satellite TV, MoCA won't work. If you buy a MoCA adapter with built-in wireless, you'll have to configure the wireless settings of course.

My wireless for example is just an old wireless router that I put in access point mode (so it's no longer a router, just a wireless access point) and I plugged the MoCA adapter and my PC into it. The actual ISP router in my utility closet is also connected to a MoCA adapter, as are the 2 other PCs. My HDTV is connected to the filtered output of the MoCA adapter that connects my HTPC to the network, that output filters out everything in the satellite/MoCA frequencies and only lets the regular cable TV frequencies through. It took a bit of fiddling to set the cable amplifier just right so that the cable TV signal came through strong enough. All in all though, using the coax for my home networking means that I have a rock stable 450 Mbit/s connection between all my devices and my internet router. The newest MoCA 2.0 adapters are even faster, roughly 800 Mbit/s. The 2 downsides to MoCA are the cost of the adapters (more expensive than powerline adapters) and the latency, which is about 3ms or similar from what you get with a wireless connection.

Powerline networking is similar in that you also need to buy an adapter for each spot where you want your network wired. The big problem with them is that their effectiveness really depends on how the power in your home is wired, the powerline adapters need to be on the same circuit to reach their advertized speeds. For example, in my home the rooms on the upper floor are all on the same circuit so plugging in an adapter in one room and another makes for an excellent connection, fast and stable (more than 100 Mbit/s at least, less than 1ms latency). But the sockets in my utility closet are on another circuit, so if I plugged in a powerline adapter in there to connect my internet router, the connection from that adapter to the others was terrible, only about 3 Mbit/s. How good or bad it is for you depends highly on the layout and how well everything is wired, and probably also on what kind of breaker panel/breakers you have. If you have a home with very old wiring it will probably be slow and/or unstable.

Thanks a lot for explaining it to me. It seems interesting to me hwoever, as you said it won't work with satellite TV. I am a cord cutter and antenna and streaming guy so I think it won't be a great option for me. Will it be?
Plus the speed issue you told is really disappointing with Powerline adapters which is the primary reason why I am thinking about going all wired now! 

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