Home Wireless Lan - Extending Coverage

[sinom]

Scenario : Living in a large two storey detached house in Pattaya area. Using a Zyxel four port wireless router to connect to TT&T's Maxnet (1024 package). Generally very happy with the service except for the coverage I get from my router around the house.

i.e. when connected to an upstairs telephone socket the signal strength received by a device in the upstairs area is very good, but the downstairs area is very poor. This is oviously due to the amount of steel and concrete in my walls and floors.

Can anybody advise an easy solution for providing good WLAN coverage in both upstairs and downstairs areas from a single telephone connecton i.e WLAN repeaters / extenders / boosters / bigger antenna etc.

I don't know what commercial products are available for such cases and do not know where to find good tech support in Pattaya area.

Any advice would be gratefully received

[cdnvic]

You can use a second router in bridge mode, try moving the router closer to the stairs first though to see if that helps.

Another more permanent solution would be to switch to a router and wireless cards that run 'N' protocol. The range is much better than 'G'.

[nikster]

There are many ways to do this, but I think the best would be to buy a Zyxel repeater. It needs to be the same brand or the repeating won't be stable.

I don't know how hard it is to set up Zyxel but if you find a shop that sells antennas and repeaters and such they will do it for you. The shop I know (in Chiang Mai) offered to do it for 2000 Baht per repeater.

That sounds steep but in the end it really depends on how much experience you have with these things - you could easily spend upwards of 4 hours on this trying it yourself, depending on the issues you find and on the hardware. For example, I have DLink routers/repeaters which work well but are fiendishly difficult to set up. Even though I now know them in and out, they are still a pain.

There is no reason for this - it could just be as easy as plopping down another router and switching it on in repeater mode. Yet, DLink has not figured out how to make that simple, same for Linksys; I don't know about Zyxel.

The only brand I know of that makes it dead simple and requires no effort at all is Apple. You can buy an Airport and an Airport Express and they will talk and act as repeaters easily. But then, they cost more than other brands. And it's not an option for you as you already have Zyxel.

Belkin also sells dedicated "repeater" boxes - ideally that's what you would want. No setup, just put the hardware in place.

What is the exact model of Zyxel router you have? I could look up models that can act as repeater for that from the Zyxel website.

cdvic - he needs a repeater or a WDS+AP router, not a bridge. A bridge is a wireless connection where the receiving end provides an ethernet port only.

[nikster]

Another word of advice - if you are so inclined, you can play with antenna placement. Very easy if you have a laptop.

Just put Netstumbler on the laptop and measure the signal strength everywhere in the house by walking around slowly. Netstumbler has two values that are important: S/N and S/N+. S/N is the current signal to noise ratio, anything over 30 will work fine. S/N+ is the best S/N ratio Netstumbler has picked up from the network.

The important thing about S/N ratio is not so much the total strength but how stable it is. That is, if there are "holes" or sudden outages in the coverage, it's not good. Going down or up is OK, but disappearing completely even for just a second is not good (no stable connection possible).

Then, you can put your Zyxel router in different places - for example, downstairs, put it on a high shelf or high up on the wall, with nothing in the way. I have seen people hide their router under the bed, or in the closet and wonder about bad coverage. Truth is, WiFi is very good when there's line of sight but anything in the way will absorb the signal more or less. It can penetrate one or two walls, but not much more.

Pre-N routers (MiMo) will be way, way better about this, but unless your laptop already has it built-in you will need an external USB card or something and it's not going to be convenient so I would rather go with router + repeater and a normal 802.11b/g network for the time being. MiMo routers have a compatibility mode for older WiFi cards of course, but then they lose all of their advantages and become normal routers, except more expensive.

[tuky]

Poor man's wifi ?

[sinom]

You can use a second router in bridge mode, try moving the router closer to the stairs first though to see if that helps.

Another more permanent solution would be to switch to a router and wireless cards that run 'N' protocol. The range is much better than 'G'.

thanks for the suggestion. I'm running two laptops and one desktop as a normal setup, plus other guests. All my hardware is "g" protocol only it would be too expensive to changeout at this time.

I will continue to play around with router location and extension wires to see if I can get an improvement, but feel a repeater should be the way to go.

[sinom]

Another word of advice - if you are so inclined, you can play with antenna placement. Very easy if you have a laptop.

Just put Netstumbler on the laptop and measure the signal strength everywhere in the house by walking around slowly. Netstumbler has two values that are important: S/N and S/N+. S/N is the current signal to noise ratio, anything over 30 will work fine. S/N+ is the best S/N ratio Netstumbler has picked up from the network.

The important thing about S/N ratio is not so much the total strength but how stable it is. That is, if there are "holes" or sudden outages in the coverage, it's not good. Going down or up is OK, but disappearing completely even for just a second is not good (no stable connection possible).

Then, you can put your Zyxel router in different places - for example, downstairs, put it on a high shelf or high up on the wall, with nothing in the way. I have seen people hide their router under the bed, or in the closet and wonder about bad coverage. Truth is, WiFi is very good when there's line of sight but anything in the way will absorb the signal more or less. It can penetrate one or two walls, but not much more.

Pre-N routers (MiMo) will be way, way better about this, but unless your laptop already has it built-in you will need an external USB card or something and it's not going to be convenient so I would rather go with router + repeater and a normal 802.11b/g network for the time being. MiMo routers have a compatibility mode for older WiFi cards of course, but then they lose all of their advantages and become normal routers, except more expensive.

as stated in my earlier reply - I'm locked into "g" hardware at the moment and don't want an expensive upgrade solution at this time.

I'll have a stumble around tonight to see if I can map out my signal pattern to optimise router location (laptop in one hand beer in the other )

I like your suggestions on repeaters and I still feel this is the way I would like to go. I do know a couple of hardware shops in Pattaya that might be able to help me but feel I should be a bit more "savvy" before tackling them.

My router is a Zyxel P-660-HW i think (not the 661 - but will have to double check). I already tried a few searches for Zxyel repeaters but came up empty handed. Any further thoughts?

cheers

[Guest Reimar]

Why you don't use an Out-door antennea with 10 or up dBi?

I using an 8 dBi Antenna mounted outside on the wall, grounded, and can use the signal around 300 meter!!

The cost for an Out-Door antenna 10 dBi ist ~ 3,000 Baht while the 8 dBi I use is 2,200 Baht! Importand is the quality of the Cable and groundig (for my opinion)!

[peter991]

Just another thought: I know you want WiFi, but do you OWN or are you RENTING your house in Pattaya?

If you own it (or have a long-tern rental), have you considered running a blue LAN cable from the upstairs to the downstairs?

You have a 4 port router (the same as I have - but I have a D-Link). I have the wireless router in my Office and have wireless to the Reception area and ran 100 metres of LAN cable to my room at the other end of the building.

Peter

[sinom]

Why you don't use an Out-door antennea with 10 or up dBi?

I using an 8 dBi Antenna mounted outside on the wall, grounded, and can use the signal around 300 meter!!

The cost for an Out-Door antenna 10 dBi ist ~ 3,000 Baht while the 8 dBi I use is 2,200 Baht! Importand is the quality of the Cable and groundig (for my opinion)!

sounds possible - would have to llok into this as a final option if no others available - still fancy the repeater option. just about to undertake some netstumbling - we'll see where this leads. Basically I'm looing for a clean and simple installation.

From Peter991 - don't know how to do multiple replies yet so it's CTRL C

Just another thought: I know you want WiFi, but do you OWN or are you RENTING your house in Pattaya?

If you own it (or have a long-tern rental), have you considered running a blue LAN cable from the upstairs to the downstairs?

You have a 4 port router (the same as I have - but I have a D-Link). I have the wireless router in my Office and have wireless to the Reception area and ran 100 metres of LAN cable to my room at the other end of the building.

Peter

It's my own house - I chose not to install LAN cables around the house. Being an engineer I hate wires and just love the wireless concept. Eventually when the coffers are reloaded I'll run bigger and better / more comprehensive networks (plus when I learn a bit more about it!!)

thanks for the advice

Sinom