The WiFi in the house seems to be very variable so here comes some daft questions

Smart TV downstairs in living room connected to router via WIFI. Router is upstairs in hall. Wifi signal downstairs can be very variable, to the point the phone will go to 3g sometimes other times its fine.

I moved the router downstairs, this obviously helped there, but the computer upstairs couldn’t receive the wifi. It does when the router is in the hall.

Could i have 2 routers (wifi networks) in the house? 1 for upstairs, one down in the living room for devices there? would there be a horrid conflict?

would a wifi booster be an idea (my very limited knowledge suggests no)

the router is an old (3-4 years) EE one. Don’t know the exact make. Can you buy more powerful routers or are they all a set power output for wifi?

thats it for now… STW IT wizards, over to you!!

I can’t advise on specific models but a better router may well help.. Standard routers supplied by broadband companies tend to be unsurprisingly basic and cheap.. They work well for most customers though…however they may throw a wobbly of they have lots of simultaneous wifi connections.
Being a standard router a few years old it’s probably not capable of the latest better wifi standards too.

Have you asked your provider if they can upgrade your router?

Is there scope to fit better antenna or upgrade the network cards on any of the devices? Would power line network adaptors be practical?
OS there scope to run cat5/6 network cable under the carpets to the devices?

It may be a physical issue with the way the house is built blocking signal.

So a few options to consider.

buy this, put the router back upstairs.
put the wifi hotspot next to the TV. Connect the TV to the powerline plug via cable. Use the wifi AP on the homeplug downstairs.

You can set the wifi SSID to match upstairs if you wish.

http://connectedhome.bt.com/product/wifi-home-hotspot-500-kit-powerline-adapter/

A new router with a good rep for a strong signal might be enough for what you describe but there wouldn’t be a guarantee until you tried it so make sure you can return it.
Otherwise I’d probably go with a powerline extender, it’s generally the most reliable and easiest to configure way of doing it and the performance should be fine for most people’s needs.

You can have 2 Wifi routers in the same house (and there’s a few options for setting them up) but it can be a PITA to get working, especially if the routers are from different manufacturers. Options depends on what modes the routers can run in to.

As fuzzywuzzy says, yes you can have two ‘routers’ and there are a few options but basically it boils down to 2:

1. Keep the existing router and then add a wire (or power line adapter) to a second device which is actually an ‘access point’ rather than a router. Give both wireless devices the same network name and all should be good

2. Keep the existing router but rather than adding a wire make the second device a wireless extender rather than a router. The wireless won’t be quite as fast but should still be ok

Option 2 is probably easiest
Stoners suggestion is also very good -( that’s the same as my option 1 )

I have had a few different routers, the 3 foot thick walls in our hall don’t help the wifi signal at all. I couldn’t use wifi outside the house and in some rooms it didn’t work. I ran a wire to an upstairs pc and recently I added an old router upstairs as a switch, I connected it to the pc and a couple of printers. It works as a switch and it’s wifi signal can be used out in the garden and garage.
Both routers are ISP give away ones.

Is there any way you can attach one or other device with a Cat 5 cable? May get more range with only one device connected wirelessly.

Thank you all..

I think the power line adapter is the easiest way forward. I’ll look into that!

Stoner – Member

buy this, put the router back upstairs.
put the wifi hotspot next to the TV. Connect the TV to the powerline plug via cable. Use the wifi AP on the homeplug downstairs.

You can set the wifi SSID to match upstairs if you wish.

http://connectedhome.bt.com/product/wifi-home-hotspot-500-kit-powerline-adapter/

How do you make your phone or whatever use the second access point automatically? Mine will switch but only if it completely loses the connection, instead of when it gets to half strength.

(Same SSID and different channel which I think is the right setup)

Sorry to hijack…. But would power line extenders work if one was on an extension leas rather than mains wiring ?

I’ve got a different BT powerline wifi extender thingy and it required a wall socket, not an extension lead.

How do you make your phone or whatever use the second access point automatically? Mine will switch but only if it completely loses the connection, instead of when it gets to half strength.
(Same SSID and different channel which I think is the right setup)

I think it will automatically pick the best signal and connect to that network, I meant to set mine up with the same SSIDs, but there was an S in the SSID and I seem to have put a five instead of it in the new one! But it still works fine, you can walk round with a laptop and it will connect to either network, I guess it’s picking the best signal.

Marking this thread for later…Powerline wifi problems here!

Sorry to hijack…. But would power line extenders work if one was on an extension leas rather than mains wiring ?

They don’t normally like doing that, it becomes more unreliable, best to stick to mains sockets. You could always get one that has a pass through socket and then plug the extension in to that one.

How do you make your phone or whatever use the second access point automatically? Mine will switch but only if it completely loses the connection, instead of when it gets to half strength.

(Same SSID and different channel which I think is the right setup)

That’s the best way to have it set, the phone should automagically swap between them as it needs to. Make sure you have more than a couple of channels separation between them and they’re on the same setup, ie both using G or N not different, helps speed it up.

The OP’s question has kind of been answered, but I thought it worth mentioning that it’s standard to have multiple Wifi basestations – IIRC we now have 8 Wifi APs at the school to provide full coverage in a building some of which is old with thick walls – all with the same SSID and all connected to a central router using wired ethernet (DHCP is on a Linux VM rather than any of the APs). Whilst a better router with better antenna(s) might improve things, fundamentally walls in buildings and other stuff interferes with the signal – before our recent upgrade one of the APs had a cardboard box being used as a standoff to move it away from the wall as I found that made a significant difference to the signal strength!

I’m not sure you can – or at least it’s not something I’ve ever seen. That’s down to how the OS on your computer is managing its wireless connections, and it’s normal to keep the current connection alive until it drops out, at which point it will search for a new one. The issue if it was possible to do that is that whenever the signal got weaker it would drop the current connection and reconnect, even if there was no better signal and it was just reconnecting to the same AP, and such a lost connection could cause you issues.

Though thinking about it, I could imagine how to write a bit of software to do what you want – given you can see signal strength for all other available connections whilst you are still connected (there are apps to do that, but just open a command prompt and type “netsh wlan show networks mode=bssid”). It wouldn’t be too hard to have something monitoring signals which would switch when your current signal strength dropped below a certain point and there was another channel available for the same SSID with a significantly better signal strength. I’m sure I could write some code to do that, but don’t think I’m going to as it’s not something I’ve ever felt a need for – though google, because it’s a straightforward enough concept I expect somebody has done it.

The issue if it was possible to do that is that whenever the signal got weaker it would drop the current connection and reconnect, even if there was no better signal and it was just reconnecting to the same AP, and such a lost connection could cause you issues.

I think that’s what the BSSID is for. You’re supposed to set the SSID to be the same, then the client will use any connection with the same SSID and a different BSSID.

By the way for anyone else with the same bugbear, there’s an Android app which claims to solve it. WIll be trying it tonight:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.seah0rse.swififree