Wireless setup in a house with very thick walls... and plenty of them! A challenge...

[antowan]

I setup a WDS configuration of Ubiquiti Picostations 2. About 5 of them.

The setup was reliable until revamp and now there is a LAN cable to the other side of the house making setup easier.

I am curious however to hear what you would do with a situation like this assuming NO LAN cable and the impossibility of installing one esthetically.

Thus your challenge is thus. Install wifi that is accessible everywhere in the house. Walls are about 4 bricks thick with steel reinforcement and you have about 6 of them in your way from one side of the house to the other. The house is about square but the ADSL connection is in the bedroom on the upper level on one side of the house. The distance from one side to the other is about 120m. The floor between levels is also concrete with steel reinforcement.

Data over powerline is not really viable and esthetically a no go. Too many distribution boxes.

What would you have done and used. Be specific with reasons if you please.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

What type of ceiling is in use?

 

[antowan]

Everything is solid as a rock! Except for the living area but that is a very expensive wooden one that you wouldn't want to touch without proper insurance! Oh and it is very high! You will need scaffolding...

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Hmpf.

Maybe by setting a WAP outside so it'll cover a few rooms from outside?

Just throwing ideas around...

 

[antowan]

Hmpf.

Maybe by setting a WAP outside so it'll cover a few rooms from outside?

Not a bad idea...

 

[Elite Override]

Wow it sounds like you live in a prison...

Anyway, I'm not very knowledgeable in this area, but you could try some of the things suggested here:

http://www.ab9il.net/wlan-projects/wifi1.html
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/208177-Long-Distance-WiFi-for-about-4-Km

You could even put attenas outside the house, and let them broadcast over the roof instead of under it.

I think this could turn out to be quite expensive.

 

[IridiuM]

Hi Autowan

Try http://lifehacker.com/5864464/netsp...ing-wi+fi-signal-problems-quick-easy-and-free

I would also go with outside AP, thats what I had to go with at my place.

 

[grok]

Get a smaller house?

 

[Takkies]

Hmm. It seems that this is what's called a Faraday Cage.
I have done a network like this before, but I have to admit that it was mostly wired. Where possible, I ran wires in the eaves and on the roof. Indoors we mostly used a small conduit. This house had a flat roof and we ran the wires under the waterproofing. Those outside antennae are as long as your arm and generally look lousy. They are also expensive and I did not find them effective for this application. I had tried the Netgear product.

Good Luck!

 

[Grant]

I have had a similar problem in a victorian house in cape town. landed up putting the wireless router & one repeater into the ceiling - worked (& still does) perfectly.

 

[chrisc]

I installed a network in a house similar to this in Silvertree Estate in Constantia. It was also 75m from one end to the other and "L" shaped. We put the ADSL router on the top floor in the centre, then wired LAN cable to access points to about 2/3 the way along to each end of the house in the roof space. Then another access point on the ground floor immediately under both first floor access points.

It worked so well that they could even use a wireless laptop in the guest cottage in the grounds which was about 60 metres from the house. Had to write in each computer's MAC address into the router though, as the regular encryption didn't stop some neighbour from freeloading the first month, and 20Gb disappeared one weekend.

 

[antowan]

Love the responses! Thank you guys!