Extending range of new eircom wifi router

The_B_Man

A friend of mine has a black eircom wifi router in his office in his shed, and is unable to get it moved.
The house only gets about half signal on the good devices. The cheaper ones cant get a wifi signal at all.

He's looking for ways to boost the signal.

Can he hook up any wifi router to it and set it up to forward on the signal, or how is this done? I think I heard before that some routers only work with cable modems and not ADSL, so can anyone even recommend a good router or signal extender?

Cheers.

maalummoja

The_B_Man wrote: »

A friend of mine has a black eircom wifi router in his office in his shed, and is unable to get it moved.
The house only gets about half signal on the good devices. The cheaper ones cant get a wifi signal at all.

He's looking for ways to boost the signal.

Can he hook up any wifi router to it and set it up to forward on the signal, or how is this done? I think I heard before that some routers only work with cable modems and not ADSL, so can anyone even recommend a good router or signal extender?

Cheers.

Use a repeater

advertsfox

maalummoja wrote: »

Use a repeater

Better yet, use Powerline Adapters and an Access Point to create a new Wi-Fi network for the house only. My setup uses these together, the AP can also be a repeat if that's a must but a seperate "clean" network in the house would be best.

TP-Link 200Mbps Powerline Adapters

TP-Link TL AP / Range Extender / Repeater

The_B_Man

Not sure if the shed is on the same electric circuit. It might be using another fusebox or something. Not an electrician so I'm not even sure if thats the right terminology. Maybe its standard for them to be connected, or maybe there's some separation somewhere between the house and shed. I'll have to get him to double check that.

So I did a quick Google there based on your links and it seems that repeaters are terrible things altogether. Losing 50% throughput straight away unless they're dual band. Is there any difference to buying a repeater against buying a router with this functionality? Maybe it'd suffer from the same issues?

Although, I think their internet is only about 30mb at most. Getting a 150mbps or 300mbps router, would that reduce the throughput to 75mbps and 150mbps, or would it make his 30mb drop to 15mb?

Sorry about all the questions. Just don't wanna have him buy the wrong stuff.

Cheers.

advertsfox

The_B_Man wrote: »

Not sure if the shed is on the same electric circuit. It might be using another fusebox or something. Not an electrician so I'm not even sure if thats the right terminology. Maybe its standard for them to be connected, or maybe there's some separation somewhere between the house and shed. I'll have to get him to double check that.

So I did a quick Google there based on your links and it seems that repeaters are terrible things altogether. Losing 50% throughput straight away unless they're dual band. Is there any difference to buying a repeater against buying a router with this functionality? Maybe it'd suffer from the same issues?

Although, I think their internet is only about 30mb at most. Getting a 150mbps or 300mbps router, would that reduce the throughput to 75mbps and 150mbps, or would it make his 30mb drop to 15mb?

Sorry about all the questions. Just don't wanna have him buy the wrong stuff.

Cheers.

Hopefully it is the same circuit, if so - the powerline adapters are a must. Alternatively, a long outdoor ethernet cable to the house into an AP would be just as good.

The problem with repeaters are you are already getting a 50% degraded signal from the shed office to the house (through the shed walls, across the garden into the house through concrete walls) so all you are doing is boosting an already poor signal.

No the speed of a router (54, 120, 150, 300 etc) is the maximum throughput internally - it will never exceed 30Mbps externally (internet) but interally for local data transfers etc, it can go up to whatever it's max speed is - also, above 120Mbps generally are N routers with a larger wireless range.

Best bet here - check for the same circuit of power, if not - long outdoor ethernet cable into the nearest point (or if you have leeway, the middle of the house for even distribution of wireless signal) and plug it into an AP (new SSID and WPA key for the house).

The_B_Man

OK so it's not on the same circuit unfortunately.

So that leaves 2 options.
-buy a router to extend the range.
-buy a router to plug into the eircom one that has really good range/power.

Would that router above have a good range, or could u recommend one with a good range for around 50?

advertsfox

The_B_Man wrote: »

OK so it's not on the same circuit unfortunately.

So that leaves 2 options.
-buy a router to extend the range.
-buy a router to plug into the eircom one that has really good range/power.

Would that router above have a good range, or could u recommend one with a good range for around 50?

Option 2 definitely, long cable to AP.

The router I posted is excellent, great range and easy as pie to configure. No need to spend anymore on something that's no necessary. Fast delivery from that seller, 4 star average from 1100 reviews.

The_B_Man

So actually, he's come back to say it IS actually on the same circuit so we're back to the plugs. I think he's gonna pull the trigger on those.

That 2nd link with the blue "range extender", is that fine for being a normal router? Like he'll have the 2nd plug in the kitchen for example, and plug that extender in to create a new SSID/wifi network. Will it be suitable?

Cheers.

advertsfox

The_B_Man wrote: »

That 2nd link with the blue "range extender", is that fine for being a normal router? Like he'll have the 2nd plug in the kitchen for example, and plug that extender in to create a new SSID/wifi network. Will it be suitable?

Yes that will be perfect, it just has 1 ethernet port on the back from connect straight from the powerline adapter.

To set it up, connect your laptop / computer directly into it and go to 192.168.1.254 and configure it as an Access Point. You can use a traditional wireless route no problem (lots of them let you set them as a an AP) but I find it very stable since it's designed for one use only and that's being an Wi-Fi AP.

SpaceTime

For 'homeplug' type networking over the power lines in your house, the signal's carried on the neutral wires only.

In Irish wiring, the circuit breakers are generally only switching the live (or if it's old wiring the fuses would be only on the live). So, all the neutrals are connected together back at the distribution panel / fusebox.

The device that will cause an issue is also the one that prevents death in your house from electric shock - the RCD.

This sits across the live and neutral, and normally there's just one of these connected to all your sockets.

It has a sensing coil that measures the difference between the live and neutral and if there's any major difference (more than 30mA .. and in reality about half that) it will trip the power to prevent shock.

The problem is that sensing coil can screw up powerline networking.

Normally, you might find a separate RCD for wiring in a different building e.g. a shed and you'd also might find multiple RCDs or RCBOs (a combined breaker and RCD) used in more modern installations where they provide a lot more RCD protection e.g. to bathroom lighting and stuff like that.

If you're having issues like that you'd really need to run hardwired CAT6 ethernet wiring instead. It's a better solution than power line networking anyway. Carrying signals on your 230V wiring is a bit of a hack to begin with.

NB: Do not under any circumstances bypass or remove an RCD from an installation. You run the risk of getting killed!

The_B_Man

Uh oh.

So you're saying there's a chance that using these powerline adapters might cause the switch to trip every time? Thats not good. Is there a way to check beforehand if this will happen?


PS, my friend has eircom bb and has a spare second D1000 wifi router. Would it be possible to use that to bridge/extend the wifi network?

Cheers.