Wireless router advice needed please

[Aidan1150]

We live in a very old house with stone walls over 30" thick. For the past few years we have been using an Epicrouter ADLS Wireless Router which is located in a downstairs room at the front of the house.

The router has a wired connection to the main PC and we have two laptops using the wireless feed.

Depending upon which room you are in the house, especially in the back kitchen the signal can be very poor.

As a result I am thinking of buying a new router in the hope that the signal at the back of the house will be stronger.

How can you tell which router gives the strongest signal? Which brand would you recommend I go for without getting into silly money?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Deleted account 220427002]

new bt home hub

 

[Thunder]

Have you got Sky in the house?

We have their wireless internet for the home phone and it's great value (£5 a month on top of the Sky package) and pumps out a strong signal

 

[Aidan1150]

Have you got Sky in the house?

We have their wireless internet for the home phone and it's great value (£5 a month on top of the Sky package) and pumps out a strong signal

Does that package mean that you have to use their phone service too Roger? We have a pretty good deal with BT now and I wouldn't really want to change from that.


How much is the BT home hub thing Gary?

 

[Aidan1150]

How much is the BT home hub thing Gary?

Found it. As an existing BT customer I can get the hub thingy for £45. Think I'll give them a ring.

Thanks.

 

[Thunder]

Does that package mean that you have to use their phone service too Roger? We have a pretty good deal with BT now and I wouldn't really want to change from that.


How much is the BT home hub thing Gary?

Think it does Aidan, we use it for Linda's pc and the lap top around the house but as were not tied to a phone package when we set it up.

 

[redcastle]

The alternative is to use the house wiring, see here
http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/default_ShopGroup.asp?ShopGroupID=61

The dynamodes work well and are cheap enough

In a nutshell you plug a 13amp plug into a socket near the router and then a network cable from the router into the device. Plug the second adapter into a 13amp socket wherever the signals bad and then a cable from the laptop to the adapter.
Teh downside is your still wired (you could use a wireless access point plugged into the second adapter instead of cable if you were fixed on wireless http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=536)

The upside is that because its wired its fast and reliable

worth a peep

 

[(RIP) Bin Ridin]

43 minutes from soup to nuts, not bad for a local helpline.....

 

[Tim Cullis]

My three-storey town house has 150mm thick concrete floors on each level, so I have two 3Com wireless hubs, one on the ground floor, one on the top floor. The middle floor gets enough of a signal from one or the other to be OK.

One is the normal full blown router/adsl modem/firewall, the other a repeater, connected to the first with cable. I'm not at the house at the moment but if you want I can give you the model numbers later.

Tim

 

[Aidan1150]

One is the normal full blown router/adsl modem/firewall, the other a repeater, connected to the first with cable. I'm not at the house at the moment but if you want I can give you the model numbers later.

Tim

That sounds interesting Tim and may be worth checking out too. Thanks.

 

[Tim Cullis]

This type of repeater technology is used in large office spaces to ensure a wide coverage area.

The devices I'm currently using are about 4 years old.
- 3Com OfficeConnect ADSL Wireless 11g Firewall Router
- 3Com OfficeConnect Wireless 11g Access Point

Both devices have been superceded with newer technology, but in theory any access point should work with your existing router and extend the coverage. This one is less than £40, with a good review:

This is a perfect little home WiFi AP, very easy to setup and supprisingly strong signal... I live in a large 18th century house with stone two foot thick internal walls... If you already have an ADSL router/firewall, disable the WG602's DHCP server and connect to the existing router with one of the four LAN ports.

Tim

 

[Gonzo]

The alternative is to use the house wiring, see here
http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/default_ShopGroup.asp?ShopGroupID=61

The dynamodes work well and are cheap enough

In a nutshell you plug a 13amp plug into a socket near the router and then a network cable from the router into the device. Plug the second adapter into a 13amp socket wherever the signals bad and then a cable from the laptop to the adapter.
Teh downside is your still wired (you could use a wireless access point plugged into the second adapter instead of cable if you were fixed on wireless http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=536)

The upside is that because its wired its fast and reliable

worth a peep

I came across this which is similar:

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3Z8H&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=wireless+range+extender&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=0

The only difference appears to be that you don't have to connect the laptop to the remote repeater device by cable, it'll do it wirelessly.

I've ordered one for use in the garden as I've got mains cabling to the end of it, that's where the patio is and its 130 feet away! For those "working at home" days......

 

[Aidan1150]

I came across this which is similar:

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3Z8H&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=wireless+range+extender&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=0

The only difference appears to be that you don't have to connect the laptop to the remote repeater device by cable, it'll do it wirelessly.

I've ordered one for use in the garden as I've got mains cabling to the end of it, that's where the patio is and its 130 feet away! For those "working at home" days......

That looks pretty handy Gonzo. Thank you.

I don't really want to go with a wired option as Redcastle suggests as that kind of defeats the whole wireless idea entirely.

 

[Pukmeister]

If you are savvy:

Buy a Linksys WRT54G series modem (G, GS, GL etc) then update the firmware from the crap standard stuff to the Linux based DD-WRT version and hey-presto, a modem with features costing £2000 including adjustable power for about £50. You can also unscrew the standard antenna and fit taller high gain ones (available on ebay). It can also be used in wireless bridge mode to link modems to an XBox360 or other ethernet featured games console.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WRT54G
http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/index.php
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/items/__wrt5...20QQ_cqrZtrueQQ_nkwuscZwrt54QQ_nkwuscZantenna

 

[PhilM]

new bt home hub

+1

just got one of these and signal strength has improved 100%, mind you I think my old router was going faulty.

router is in the lounge (downstairs front) and second pc is upstairs at back of house, signal is still reading as excellent.

and it's play and play, no need to install anything on pcs

 

[Aidan1150]

Buy a Linksys WRT54G series modem (G, GS, GL etc) then update the firmware from the crap standard stuff to the Linux based DD-WRT version and hey-presto, a modem with features costing £2000 including adjustable power for about £50. You can also unscrew the standard antenna and fit taller high gain ones (available on ebay). It can also be used in wireless bridge mode to link modems to an XBox360 or other ethernet featured games console.

That sounds impressive Adam, but is it difficult to achieve? I would be worried about fecking up the firmware update. There won't be any games consoles etc on the network, just a hardwired PC and two or three laptops.

 

[Andybro]

As a result I am thinking of buying a new router in the hope that the signal at the back of the house will be stronger.

How can you tell which router gives the strongest signal? Which brand would you recommend I go for without getting into silly money?

Thanks in advance.

Consider a MIMO router (stick MIMO into Wikapedia!). MIMO technology is designed to boost performance. You may wish to go for something with greater than 54Mbps. Have a look at the Netgear DG834PN as an example (I don't have one and i'm not specifically recommending it - Dabs.com give a good explanation against if you need). This kind of technology suggests it doesn't need repeaters.

Word of caustion on SKY broadband. I have wireless broadband through sky and you MUST use their hardware. If you don't get the coverage you need from their wireless router then it is a case of tough t*tty!

Good luck.

 

[The Stimulator]

Consider a MIMO router (stick MIMO into Wikapedia!). MIMO technology is designed to boost performance. You may wish to go for something with greater than 54Mbps. Have a look at the Netgear DG834PN as an example (I don't have one and i'm not specifically recommending it - Dabs.com give a good explanation against if you need). This kind of technology suggests it doesn't need repeaters.
.........
Good luck.

Been following this thread with interest as I have a Netgear DG834PN downstairs, and upstairs have a Netgear WPN311 PCI adaptor - bearing in mind that ours is a fairly modern timber framed house the connectivity from this equipment is lousy - signal strength is never above "Very Low" but it does have to be said that the connection is stable. It's not even as if the computers are at different ends of the house, all the signal has to do is go through the floor.

I don't know about high gain aerials for the PCI adaptor, but I certainly couldn't recommend this kit straight out of the box.



Iain

 

[Tim Cullis]

There's a lot of novel suggestions made on this thread, but the technology used to cover large offices/difficult buildings is to install additional wireless access points: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_point

So that the WAP and your current router don't fight over who gives out IP addresses, you disable the DHCP in the WAP.

I've just checked in our accounts and I purchased the equipment in March 2004 and it's been working fine ever since. £40 to install. No brainer.

Tim
PS: I wrote HP Grenoble Networking Division's technology training manuals as part of the HP STAR project.

 

[Mike Werner]

Not only do I have really thick flintstone walls, but also need to connect up my office that is 300 meters further up. So far, I've tried every new technology that has come up, including the standard MIMO, but no good.

Recently I swithed to Wifi N using Netgear? It meant changing router (I bought 2 since you can use the new Netgear as repeater), plus wifi N USB dongles.

This works fantastic. I get between 150 and 200 M connections via WiFi, even at the furthest station. The routers themselves have Gigabit connections for the wired ones (I've got NAS servers).

So that would be my recommendation.... Netgear WiFi N