Hi All.
Todays challenge.
I am thinking that a 3 router system is what I need for my house, but not sure so your advice will be welcome.
Virgin media 100meg broadband is installed and the Super hub 2 Router is next to the TV downstairs.
Now I know thats not the best position but its about my only choice. It works my wireless equipment fine downstairs.
Cat 5 cable goes upstairs to my main laptop and again no issues. The wireless laptop and Tablet seem to struggle especially when Streaming TV/films.
I also want the option to use the hard wired and wireless equipment at the top of my garden, some 25m away. There is hardly any wireless coverage out there.
I can easily send a cat 5/6 cable from upstairs to the end of the garage or into the attached shed.
What do you recommend.
Homeplugs?
They drop to much of the speed and dont give me a wired connection.
If your garage is on the same circuit, power line adaptors are a good idea.
If, like mine it is seperate, and it's easy to do...I would be running the cable up the garden. I use an airport express as an extender, but it's not as good as if like it to be.
They drop to much of the speed and dont give me a wired connection.
Homeplug come in a wired option too.
Why 3 routers? Surely 3 switches and wireless extenders would be easier to set up?
3 switches might work fine. But the WiFi extenders will probably drop to much speed. I believe they only give about 1/2 speed.
Just done this in my own house. There is some confusing terminology going on here, let me explain.
You only ever need one router. Conected to this you might have multiple switches with CAT 5 or cat 6 connecting them.
Homeplugs are wired, they use your houses electrical circuit instead of CAT5 cable.
You can get homeplugs that act as wifi extensions. These give full speed wifi to the limit of your homeplug speed.
Wifi repeaters bridge wirelessly to act as an extender. These run slower than wired ones as they have to accept and transmit every signal that comes into them (doubling traffic on the wireless channel).
Wireless access points however are wired in with cat 5 and can act as an extension to your wifi giving full network speed.
I bought two 5 port gigabit switches, a wireless access point and a reel of external at 6 (make sure its not CCA cable!).
Had wifi at the end of my garden for about £60.
You can get a gig homeplug, Solwise do one not sure who else so how much speed do you need? Even if it drops down 50% its stil 500mbps.
If you use a wireless extender you will se about 50% of the speed of the connection as its a second hop so probably not what you want.
For cheapness a few netgear of dlink 8 port switches at each end.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ubiquiti-UAP-3-UniFi-3-pack/dp/B008M8GZQU
Might be a bit overkill and you might get away with a single AP
For streaming video 5GHz is miles better if your devices support it
Thanks for the info guys. I didnt know about Homeplugs. I am wanting full speed if possible as I get buffering even upstairs on the Wifi, and seeing as I am paying for 100meg it would be nice for it to work properly.