Reader Help Needed — What’s Best Way to Cover Big House With Broadband?
This community has the smartest tech people around, and is a good place to pose a problem one of our readers needs to solve. I will let Sanjay speak for himself:
I am an avid reader of jkOnTheRun from India (New Delhi) for the last few years and visit the site daily….I am just moving into a large house (9000 square feet over two floor with lots of concrete) built on a 3 acre plot of land…..
Wanted your help or suitable link to a resource on whats the most powerful Wifi Router to use so that I get coverage on both the floors of the house ….. i have a 8 mbps DSL line from my telecom service provider…
Thank you in advance
What is the best way to cover such a large, multi-story dwelling made of concrete? I am confident we’ll get the best solutions for Sanjay to consider, even though it’s a pretty big problem. Leave your suggestions for Sanjay in the comments.
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Cable it.
What about several Apple Airport Express devices? I believe they can be configured to operate as a mesh, so just buy a few and sprinkle them around the house.
Added benefit: audio output on each one that can be controlled separately (shareware for non-iTunes applications).
At $99 each it isn’t cheap, but it sounds simple.
what about running a few wired drops and connecting wireless access points to them? i’ve tried a couple of repeaters and they work but there was definitely some loss of quality.
I might wire each floor separately with it’s own wireless router and then maybe use bridges to distribute the signal on each floor as that’s a lot of square footage.
Why not set up a wifi repeater or two? There are several tutorials online that explain how to set this up. I would also get routers that support the DD-WRT or Tomato Firmware so you can dial up the signal on each router.
Unless you’re pleasantly surprised that the signal can get between the floors, I think we’re easily talking multiple APs. You’ll have to map out just how far the signal can go.
In general, one thing I’ve done is run two APs and use powerline networking to connect the two APs. I haven’t used powerline in awhile, so I am unsure of the current speeds possible but it’s more than adequate for Internet surfing.
Otherwise, you may find the signal can reach between floors and you’ll need something like a bridge or something that will extend the wireless signal from the other floor. The most brain-dead idea off-hand is something like the Apple Extreme Base Station and one or more Apple Airport Express devices around the house.
Hope this helps! And anyone else, please feel free to correct me!
@tcv
Homeplug or ethernet over powerline.
You can buy this tech from the likes of DLink, Belkin, Linksys and many many more if you look on eBay.
The tech uses your mains power cabling to get your packets from one side of the house to the other. Much more reliable than wireless, just as secure (if not more so) and it does not care about thick walls.
You can pick up a pair of 200mbits adapters for not much cash on ebay (you won’t get a full 200mbits but seeing that you only need 8mbits, this will still give you plenty).
Simples
For that size I would suggest considering the Symbol/Motorolla WS2000 switch with up to six power-over-ethernet (POE) antennas. Sounds like they will need two per floor to insure good coverage, with another placed outside if desired.
I would use WDS (wireless distribution system) to mesh the wireless (lots of routers support it), that way there is no drop off between WAPs (Wireless Access Points). If you still have dead spots you could use powerline to link WAPs to the LAN
I would do a combo, some HD homeplug, maybe just two to start. Put ONE straight into a GIGE router, like an airport or something, but PLEASE start with GIGE at the router. Linksys makes some nice GIGE port routers as well.
With that homeplug HD run, put another one UPSTAIRS in the middle of the upstairs floors. At THAT location upstairs, put ANOTHER AP, possibly with the same SSID (this is fine, as long as there isn’t much overlap) or a different SSID/UPSTAIRS.
For the upstairs, you should be pretty well covered. If not, either upstairs or downstairs, you can pop in some nice AIRPORT EXPRESS AP’s that will do WDS, meaning they simply act as repeaters for the primary Aiport basestations. I think the linksys products do WDS as well, but make sure that the standards are the same.
I really like the apple AE’s since they also act as digital audio out itunes streaming devices, as long as they are within an optical cables reach of your stereo. You can even control your itunes with a iphone or ipod touch from anywhere on the LAN, to change songs and setup playlists, etc.
So, AP’s on each floor and homeplug to connect the floors. This will give you the best throughput and solid connections short of pulling copper.