hello all,
I need to improve my wireless signal strength in my house without moving furniture, wired devices, etc..
My primary considerations (in order of importance) is signal strength, uptime, link durability and price.
I would like to hear what people suggest before I plunk down any more cash, so that I can 'get it right' and move on to other projects.
I am weighing the following:
Currently, I live in a 3 floor house (basement, main & second). The house is not wired for ethernet. The house is rectangular.
I have one D-Link DIR-655 in the basement at one end of the house. It is in the room all way to the back of the house on that floor. We have a telco closet in there and an office with a printer and a desktop pc with a wired gigabit ethernet port. I have two mac laptops and two dell laptops, plus a tivo
The wireless coverage is good in the basement and on the main floor. On the second floor directly above the router, the wireless signal is good. However, the signal drops in the middle of the second floor and is gone from there to the opposite end of the house from the router. So, net effect is a large wireless dead zone on the top floor at the opposite end of the house.
I have put together the following possible solutions and am open to more.
I really don't want to call electricians to rewire my house or start drilling through walls, myself. I'll use the power or wireless, but that's about it. Once I get it up, I don't want to keep rebooting the devices because they lose connection between each other. I'd like this thing to work and stay working.
I'm really looking for detailed analysis of my proposed solutions as well as any detailed alternate plans (including make/model, band, key specs).
Thanks!
I need to improve my wireless signal strength in my house without moving furniture, wired devices, etc..
My primary considerations (in order of importance) is signal strength, uptime, link durability and price.
I would like to hear what people suggest before I plunk down any more cash, so that I can 'get it right' and move on to other projects.
I am weighing the following:
- router types
- powerline ethernet to connect an AP to the main router
- manufacturers
- draft n vs. b/g
Currently, I live in a 3 floor house (basement, main & second). The house is not wired for ethernet. The house is rectangular.
I have one D-Link DIR-655 in the basement at one end of the house. It is in the room all way to the back of the house on that floor. We have a telco closet in there and an office with a printer and a desktop pc with a wired gigabit ethernet port. I have two mac laptops and two dell laptops, plus a tivo
The wireless coverage is good in the basement and on the main floor. On the second floor directly above the router, the wireless signal is good. However, the signal drops in the middle of the second floor and is gone from there to the opposite end of the house from the router. So, net effect is a large wireless dead zone on the top floor at the opposite end of the house.
I have put together the following possible solutions and am open to more.
[*]wireless and wired - add a router turned into an AP via powerline ethernet. currently considering staying with d-link for this. I would use their powerline devices and maybe a dir-625.
[*]100% wireless - get an apple airport base station for the basement and an apple airport express to plug in as a wireless range extender.
[*]all of the above - use the powerline ethernet and go with the apple airport gear.
I really don't want to call electricians to rewire my house or start drilling through walls, myself. I'll use the power or wireless, but that's about it. Once I get it up, I don't want to keep rebooting the devices because they lose connection between each other. I'd like this thing to work and stay working.
I'm really looking for detailed analysis of my proposed solutions as well as any detailed alternate plans (including make/model, band, key specs).
Thanks!