Improve Wifi

[a l e x]

I’ve just moved house and having a few WiFi issues. Annoyingly the internet comes into the house in the living room. The kitchen and conservatory are at the other end of the house and WiFi signal is very poor. In the bedrooms at the opposite end of the house to the living room the WiFi signal is pretty much none existent. What’s my best option for improving the signal? Will one of the range extenders work or are they not very good? Any better options?

Thanks.

 

[psychopomp1]

What router are you currently using? if its an ISP supplied one, it won't have the best wifi coverage (ie won't be of a high wifi spec) so It might be worth investing in a better third party router for wifi. Something like the Netgear D7800 is a great option or if you want something a bit cheaper then the TP Link VR900v2 is a good cheaper alternative. Having said all this, even the best router in the world cannot change the laws of physics so you may need a wifi mesh system or additional access points if you have thick walls. I would try an alternative router first to see how you get on - buy it from Amazon so that you can return it hassle free if necessary.

 

[bubblegum57]

Mains socket with wifi extender might help

https://www.screwfix.com/p/british-...PWV5ybeZfrx_VeRaaWsaAh8xEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[Chester]

If you're not getting any WiFi service in the opposite bedrooms, then you're looking at much more than just a different router as a solution. However there are several ways of improving the situation: PowerLine WiFi extenders, WiFi mesh, cabled access points, listed in increasing order of performance and unfortunately cost.

Most of this depends on budget, how reliable you want your home network to be, and what applications you're running over it. It's entirely up to you, but the more information on this we have, the more tuned the answers will be.

 

[_Dragon_]

I’ve just moved house and having a few WiFi issues. Annoyingly the internet comes into the house in the living room. The kitchen and conservatory are at the other end of the house and WiFi signal is very poor. In the bedrooms at the opposite end of the house to the living room the WiFi signal is pretty much none existent. What’s my best option for improving the signal? Will one of the range extenders work or are they not very good? Any better options?

Thanks.

I get poor wifi in both bedrooms so what I'm doing is wiring tvs etc then buying a wifi acess point to place in one of the bedrooms, my daughter hogs all the wifi at the moment with her phone and ipad plus PS4 add that to poor wifi not a happy home lol. So hard wiring her tv and PS4 should make things better for everyone.

 

[MarkyPancake]

Whilst wired devices will reduce the wireless noise, the bandwidth is still being shared with multiple devices. So, it might be worth looking into using QoS as well.

 

[Chester]

QoS based on what though!?!

 

[mickevh]

For the purposes of clarity, and bearing in mind that you are likely talking with a few experts and professionals via this forum, let us be clear that "Wi-Fi" and "Internet" are different things albeit that in public discourse, the two terms are often (erroneously) used interchangeably.

The reason for my making the distinction (apart from my minor OCD) is that solutions for fixing a Wi-Fi coverage issue and for fixing an Internet bandwidth hog could be different and unrelated. Kinda like a patience presenting at A&E with a broken arm and a nasty cut in one leg. Fixing one won't address the other even though the patience happens to be presenting with multiple symptoms and if they were both caused by the same accident.

 

[MarkyPancake]

QoS based on what though!?!

You could give less priority to gaming traffic and more to streaming traffic and so on.

 

[Chester]

And thus begins the in-house civil war!

 

[noiseboy72]

To improve wifi and give you some wired network sockets at the other end of the house, I can wholeheartedly recommend these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06XRXJNMT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The range from the repeated wifi is excellent and set the ssid and password to be the same as your main router (There's a single button on the unit to do this and simple instructions to follow) and you will have seamless wifi coverage.

Range extenders will slow your wifi speed down and can cause more problems than they cure. I found that some of the older units refused to work with iPhones, causing them to lose connection all the time.

You can improve the coverage of your router by moving it away from anything metal or with its own wifi. Routers behind TVs - particularly if there's Sky boxes and TVs with the wifi switched on will often have very limited range, as the routers are subject to interference and high levels of RF, which makes them a little "deaf" to weaker signals.

5.8GHz is much faster but does not propagate anywhere near as well as 2.4GHz, so any devices that are quite distant might struggle to connect to the higher speed network.

If you need to limit traffic to games consoles etc. most routers have a QoS setting, which allows you to set a bandwidth limit to specific MAC addresses. I found that on our 56Mbs connection this was not required - even in a house with 2 teenage daughters streaming Youtube and Netflix continually while we are watching 4K Netflix on the main TV. I do however user it on our 4G routers we deploy at work, mainly limit the amount of data used. Each device is restricted to a 1Mbs connection, which is more than enough for the app they run. Anyone who tries to connect to streaming services is disappointed as we also block them all using a whitelist restriction. This is probably a bit draconian for home use though!

 

[a l e x]

Thanks for the help all. I’ve moved the router which helped slightly but still get WiFi connection issues in the main bedroom. The signal is very poor and keeps disconnecting. We have a nest thermostat in the room which is having issues connecting also.

To be honest, we mainly use phones/iPad so power line adaptors won’t be much use. Everything downstairs are wired connections, I just need to sort a better WiFi connection in the bedroom.

Can anyone recommend a decent range extender? I think this would be the best way to solve the issue?

Thanks.

 

[noiseboy72]

The unit I recommended gives you both wired and wireless connectivity and works perfectly with iPads and phones.

Powerline extenders use a 1 to many topology, so after fitting the connection to your router, you can add more wired or wireless access points as required.

This avoids stand alone range extenders which in my opinion are the devices which cause the most issues.

Try the device I've recommended and then add a second wireless access point upstairs if required.