Wifi in a double story

[F1ve_Claw]

So here is the scenario:

I live in a house that shares a wall with a secondary house. Wifi router is close to said shared wall (where the fibre is mounted). House is divided into upstairs and downstairs. Stairs run up the wall (not enclosed), and router is below them.

The problem:
The speed in one of the two upstairs bedrooms is SHOCKING, even though the network speed on devices states around 130Mbps. The room in question is on the upstairs, but above on the neighbors side of the shared wall (one of our rooms is above their house). The second room which is above our lounge/ kitchen which is directly below where the router is has the same signal strength but better speeds.

Additional Info:

Speeds in bad room are around 15Mbps off the 50Mbps line
Speeds in good room are around 48-50Mbps off the 50Mbps line

Running off 2.4Ghz
Two other wifi networks in the area. No matter what channel there is overlap.
Signal strength seems to be around -70dBm from my router
Closest wifi from neighbors seems to be around -80dBm

All interior walls are dry walling for the bedrooms

Where to from here?

My current though is to run a PoE booster from the router, up the stairs and mount it on the wall between the two rooms.
1) Do you think this will work
2) Any suggestions on PoE boosters (no power anywhere close to where we could run a lan cable)
3) Any thoughts on something cheap to test the theory
4) Anything else you would recommend

 

[Arthur]

Ubiquiti UniFi solved all my problems in a large double-story with thick brick walls. I have three spread around the place, all on PoE, and wifi is strong wherever it needs to be. It even reaches the two cottages about 50m to the west of the main house. Recommended.

 

[PsyWulf]

Even if the Router can transmit with a good signal,that doesn't mean your device can return the favor

Tried Ethernet over Power? (Powerline) - like these https://www.takealot.com/tp-link-300mbps-av500-wi-fi-powerline-extender-starter-kit/PLID34147433
I've used similar,depending on your home wiring it could give decent performance

 

[Gordon_R]

Sorry, you're screwed IMO. There is no way to run fibre speed internet through wifi in an urban area...

 

[I O U]

When are we getting mesh routers (sold in retailers) that seem to solve all wifi problems in the US these days? Like the eero ..

https://eero.com/ - eero is the world’s first home WiFi system. A set of three eeros covers the typical home. They work in perfect unison to deliver hyper-fast, super-stable WiFi to ...

 

[PsyWulf]

When are we getting mesh routers (sold in retailers) that seem to solve all wifi problems in the US these days? Like the eero ..

Mesh routers aren't new but it's still spotty compared to hardwiring

You can run a mesh with the Unifi APs too

 

[F1ve_Claw]

Ubiquiti UniFi solved all my problems in a large double-story with thick brick walls. I have three spread around the place, all on PoE, and wifi is strong wherever it needs to be. It even reaches the two cottages about 50m to the west of the main house. Recommended.

I was going to try this - we have a few in the office and they work well. Thanks for the feedback!

Even if the Router can transmit with a good signal,that doesn't mean your device can return the favor

Tried Ethernet over Power? (Powerline) - like these https://www.takealot.com/tp-link-300mbps-av500-wi-fi-powerline-extender-starter-kit/PLID34147433
I've used similar,depending on your home wiring it could give decent performance

I have looked into it, but the wiring appears not to be cooperative .This was my origional go to as it seemed the easiest

Sorry, you're screwed IMO. There is no way to run fibre speed internet through wifi in an urban area...

Sadly it is just the one room that is giving issues, all the others in the house are fine giving 50/5 all with no hickups. If I owned the place I would simply hardwire, but the owner does not understand the issue. The fibre connection terminates where it does as he thought it should be close to a tv :|

Mesh routers aren't new but it's still spotty compared to hardwiring

You can run a mesh with the Unifi APs too

Thanks - will check it out. The place is pretty small at around 80m^2 internally with a top/bottom split of 50/50. Just that one room that is not being friendly at all

 

[Dirty Harry101]

Sounds like a duplex house type setup?
I would say if you can get a LAN cable upstairs, get an AP on it, preferably Ubiquiti or Mikrotik, and you sorted.
Or just replace current router with a Mikrotik, should work fine. Most end user routers that have wifi are not very strong. I have a MTK RB951 in the main house, and I get usable signal in the cottage which is about 10-15m direct and 5 walls and some glass.
Welcome to shoot a message if you need assistance.

 

[sajunky]

The fibre connection terminates where it does as he thought it should be close to a tv :|

Fibre wall box is not doing your WiFi, right?
Do what Dirty Harry101 says.

You can use longer Cat5e cable and position your WiFi router anywhere in the house. Lot of signal is lost under the stairs. If you move WiFi router little bit out of stairs, your problem may disappear. And it is the cheapest way to do it.

Use a long LAN cable first to find a sweet spot around the house for all devices, then a hot glue gun to fix the cable. Don't use to much glue than neccessary, so you can remove it later without damaging paint. A one glue point every 20cm should be sufficient. Power cable for the router can run together with LAN cable. Not recommended in general, but current drawn by the router is very small, so in short distances it will not have negative effects. Get a thin two core wire from the hardware shop, cut it to the proper size, put your own fittings. Tell the attendant it is for a low power 240V device to make sure that cable you are receiving is safe.

 

[bdt]

Fibre wall box is not doing your WiFi, right?
Do what Dirty Harry101 says.

You can use longer Cat5e cable and position your WiFi router anywhere in the house. Lot of signal is lost under the stairs. If you move WiFi router little bit out of stars, your problem may disappear. And it is the cheapest way to do it.

With mostly network cable and plugs, yep. Also dead easy to test for if worth doing if you have a convenient length of terminated cable lying around.

Use a long LAN cable first to find a sweet spot around the house for all devices, then a hot glue gun to fix the cable. Don't use to much glue than neccessary, so you can remove it later without damaging paint. A one glue point every 20cm should be sufficient. Power cable for the router can run together with LAN cable. Not recommended in general, but current drawn by the router is very small, so in short distances it will not have negative effects. Get a thin two core wire from the hardware shop, cut it to the proper size, put your own fittings. Tell the attendant it is for a low power 240V device to make sure that cable you are receiving is safe.

Yea, no - there's mostly no need to have the hassle of putting in ripcord (two core wire) that you need to terminate too (DC barrel jack on the device end, and the socket I guess back at the power brick end.

More elegant is going with a passive PoE injector/splitter kit; and, in the case of it being a rather longer (so more like > 30m than around 10m), just get a higher current brick that has the grunt to feed that long line. This results in only the network cable to manage.

 

[Dolby]

What about something like this ?

http://www.smartkit.co.za/product-tag/airties/

http://www.airties.com/product-4920.html

1600 Mbps 3x3 802.11ac + 2x2 802.11n
Wireless Mesh AP/Extender

Perhaps you can follow the path of foot traffic?
ie one downstairs with a 5ghz backhall to the 2nd just just below the stairs, and the last upstairs ?

They've worked for a number of houses at 350sqm+

 

[F1ve_Claw]

and I am back. Wife is battling where she has moved in the office upstairs. Decided something HAS to be done.

So now, with a budget of around R2k do a go for a better router, or use something like a this (UniFi Long Range)

Any suggestions?

 

[PsyWulf]

Even if the Router can transmit with a good signal,that doesn't mean your device can return the favor

Sticking to my previous statement. There are legal and technical limits to wireless

 

[F1ve_Claw]

Sticking to my previous statement. There are legal and technical limits to wireless

I should check with another router. The distance is so short, it's 8m if you walk up the stairs and into the room. Straight line it will go through a single brick wall, and through a carpeted floor (not concrete - based on the sound I think wood). I would hope that wireless limits aren't that bad - had better signal at my old place going through 4 double brick walls :|

As a sidenote, the router is now 4 years old and it seems that 2.4ghz bandwidth is saturated on all channels with stronger signal coming from the people nextdoor . 5ghz is 100% free though, so was hoping that would help possibly?

 

[PsyWulf]

I should check with another router. The distance is so short, it's 8m if you walk up the stairs and into the room. Straight line it will go through a single brick wall, and through a carpeted floor (not concrete - based on the sound I think wood). I would hope that wireless limits aren't that bad - had better signal at my old place going through 4 double brick walls :|

As a sidenote, the router is now 4 years old and it seems that 2.4ghz bandwidth is saturated on all channels with stronger signal coming from the people nextdoor . 5ghz is 100% free though, so was hoping that would help possibly?

2.4 - High noise,low speed,since everyone's sharing the same airspace
5ghz - has low penetration so the signal drops off over distance far more than 2.4 when there are hindrances

Take a Wifi scanner app like below and map your area and signal strengths over channels
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en

 

[infscrtyrisk]

2.4 - High noise,low speed,since everyone's sharing the same airspace
5ghz - has low penetration so the signal drops off over distance far more than 2.4 when there are hindrances

Take a Wifi scanner app like below and map your area and signal strengths over channels
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en

Or this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wituners.wificonsolelite

 

[F1ve_Claw]

Followup: New router did the trick. 5ghz range got rid of a lot of the clutter, and 2.4ghz is now dynamically switching between channels to avoid the fulled ones.

 

[Fcon_Vpro]

Followup: New router did the trick. 5ghz range got rid of a lot of the clutter, and 2.4ghz is now dynamically switching between channels to avoid the fulled ones.

What router did you go for?