Best solution for Wireless into the basement

[Michael James]

I've been looking around for weeks for the best solution. I have a Linksys E3000 router on the mainfloor. It is a dual 2.4 and 5 Ghz band router.

On the mainfloor, at the other end of the house, I have a 2.4 Ghz printer. (I'm not getting a good signal to it and I loose connectivity often or it prints really slow).

In the basement, which is fully finshed, I have a laptop running 5 Ghz and a Wireless 2.4 Ghz IP camera (it does have the option to go wired as well). I am not getting good reception down there and cannot stream movies from the upstairs laptop to the down stairs laptop. (The upstairs laptop is where all my movies and photos are stored in Pacasa... the down stairs laptop accesses these pictures via a mapped drive)

I've researched a little the TRENDnet TPL-401E2K and WNHDB3004.

Any suggestions on what to do..I really down want to run more wires as it would cost quite a bit to start ripping up the basement

 

[thiggins]

5 GHz signals don't go as far as 2.4 GHz. Also if your are streaming from a wireless laptop to another wireless laptop, effective bandwidth will be cut in half for each client.

Switch to 2.4 GHz for streaming and connect the laptop with the movies on it via Ethernet.

For that printer, I'd try a pair of HomePlug AV 200 adapters.

 

[Michael James]

I tried the Linksys RE1000 and got a strong lock at a speed of 144 mbps. Problem is it only works on 2.4 ghz network and not a 5 Ghz. Linksys said I needed a 5 Ghz in order to get up into the 300 mbps for this to work.

Its not like I'm not getting a signal in the basement but the transmit speeds are slower. Moving the library to the router via USB seems like a good idea but I am hearing people are having a lot of problems with it.

 

[RogerSC]

How are your movies streaming at 144mbs? If you're really getting that transfer rate, you shouldn't have a problem streaming movies. You can find out what your real transfer rate is by copying a large file (> 1GB) from the computer that you're streaming movies from on the main floor to the laptop in the basement via wireless. Then just see how long the transfer takes, and you can get your "average" transfer rate that way. There's also software to instrument transfer rate measurement.

Also, streaming from laptop to laptop via wireless is really not a good way to go. You're losing a lot right there, as has been noted. If you had a source for your streaming videos on the main floor that was hardwired to your router that would be much better.

There are also other alternatives, like powerline networking and MOCA (using the TV coaxial cable in your walls for ethernet as well as cable TV) that will give you enough transfer rate for good streaming video.

 

[thiggins]

The rate you see is a link rate (like 10/100/1000 Mbps for Ethernet), not actual delivered throughput.

300 Mbps link speeds are possible in both 2.4 and 5 GHz bands when using channel bonding (auto 20/40 mode). 5 GHz isn't the solution because it has less range than 2.4 GHz.

 

[Greg_Elite]

Get a Linksys E4200. The best wireless router currently on the market.

 

[claykin]

Get a Linksys E4200. The best wireless router currently on the market.

Statement of fact or opinion?