'Seamless' wireless networking in large, awkward house.

[snoopstah]

Hi guys,

I'm sure this has been answered on here already, but I've been reading old threads and getting more and more confused!

I've recently moved back in with my parents and am trying to improve the rather poor wireless network coverage and performance here.

The house is quite large and is made of stone, so getting wireless signals through the walls is more difficult than in modern houses. Currently we have three access points, two old and unreliable D-Link b/g models and a more modern Belkin 300n (2.4GHz) model. These are spread around the house and linked together via 100mbit Cat5.

Typical clients in use are laptops (some with 5GHz 802.11n cards, some without), mobile phones, and tablets, as well as a wireless bridge for a PVR with ethernet port.

The issues that we're facing that I'd like to try and resolve are:

1. Poor network coverage/performance in remote areas of the house (typical symptoms are phones that just about negotiate a connection but then struggle to transfer any meaningful data.

2. Mobile devices 'hanging on' to associated access point to the bitter end, rather than switching to a much stronger signal, when roaming.

3. Persistent connections dropping when roaming between access points.

Addressing these points in turn:

1. I am already planning on replacing at least the 2 D-Link b/g routers, as they are very unreliable and 'disappear' a lot, requiring a reboot. I'd like to upgrade everything to support 300n speeds. There is minimal Wifi interference here (i.e. no other APs in range other than our own) so am I right in thinking that 5GHz kit will give us little benefit?

I'm guessing I should be looking at access points with a high transmit power (possibly via firmware hacks?), and that can also accept an aftermarket antenna (5dBi or so?) to increase the coverage range to the extremes of the house. Does anyone have any recommendations?

2/3. I understand there are technologies such as Fast Roaming Support which can do access point handover in 50ms, however, this requires enterprise-class equipment and is overkill for our usage -- handover in a couple of seconds would suffice. It would be nice if long-running connections (SSH sessions, etc.) would persist, if possible.

My understanding is that the best way to do this is to have all the access points using the same SSID and encryption settings -- is this correct? Should the access points be on the same channel or non-overlapping channels? Is there any better way of doing this -- I've tried both same-channel and different-channel settings on the current kit, but it's not behaving very nicely, however, this may be due to the age of the access points.

Is handover/roaming support any better using something like WDS? Having the ability to place wired access points around the house makes me steer away from repeater technology, but overall throughput on the network is, while desirable, not critical, so if we had better roaming capability using WDS I may consider this instead.

I realise there's a lot of questions in here, so any help with any of them would be much appreciated!

 

[thiggins]

Hi there. Many of your questions can be answered by SNB articles, so I'm going to point you there to start.
Start by reading The Best Way To Get Whole House Wireless Coverage

1. I am already planning on replacing at least the 2 D-Link b/g routers, as they are very unreliable and 'disappear' a lot, requiring a reboot. I'd like to upgrade everything to support 300n speeds. There is minimal Wifi interference here (i.e. no other APs in range other than our own) so am I right in thinking that 5GHz kit will give us little benefit?

5 GHz signals are attenuated more then 2.4 GHz when passing through solids. With your home construction, you don't want to go to 5 GHz. Stay with 2.4 GHz.

I'm guessing I should be looking at access points with a high transmit power (possibly via firmware hacks?), and that can also accept an aftermarket antenna (5dBi or so?) to increase the coverage range to the extremes of the house. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Higher gain antennas can help somewhat. But not higher power. See Why High Power Routers Don't Improve Range

2/3. I understand there are technologies such as Fast Roaming Support which can do access point handover in 50ms, however, this requires enterprise-class equipment and is overkill for our usage -- handover in a couple of seconds would suffice. It would be nice if long-running connections (SSH sessions, etc.) would persist, if possible.

The short story is that this isn't supported in consumer grade equipment. You need support on the client side, which also doesn't come in stock Windows drivers.

Your requirements 2 and 3 are in conflict. For "seamless" transition, all APs need to be on the same SSID, yes. But most consumer client drivers are very sticky and stay associated until basically the signal drops. To fix that, you need to set your APs to different SSIDs and manually switch to them as needed.

Some drivers (Intel in particular) have "roaming aggressiveness" or similar settings that may help a bit. But the only cure for fast switchover is enterprise gear and client drivers.

 

[misfiringsystem]

^So according to the article that you've posted, the most straight forward way to increase network range to cover a big house is to use powerline adapter IF I don't want to drag ethernet cables around (or I can't put them into the walls).

Are powerline adapters safe though? I've never used one before, it's just the thought of using power outlet to provide network connection sounds sketchy to me (I've heard of it before, but I don't know anyone first hand who has used it)

In addition, do you think there are any powerline adapters and the routers for AP that you can recommend for consumer use?

Right now, I'm also using a Linkysys WRT54G on internet service advertised to provide 25 Mbps, would I need to upgrade that?

 

[thiggins]

Powerline networking has been around for years and adapters have proper regulatory approval. Yes, they're safe.

I'd look at these:
D-Link DHP-1320 Wireless N PowerLine Router Reviewed
D-Link DHP-W306AV PowerLine AV Wireless N Extender Reviewed

WRT54G should handle 25 Mbps ok unless it's the original (v1) model.

 

[misfiringsystem]

^Thanks!

I think I kind of understand the idea of setting multiple APs.

I was wondering though, if my poor network range is due to poor placement of my router, could I set up my network like this?

modem (immovable) -> powerline adapter


powerline adapter (ideal location ie middle of the house) -> my router



that way, if my single router can cover my whole house, then I don't need to buy another router to set up as an AP?

 

[stevech]

yes, homeplug link from cable/DSL modem to router's WAN port should work. Never tried it though. Should work as the homeplug devices are "layer 2 bridges", meaning they are supposed to be transparent and not IP-aware (except for admin).

with the current non-optimal router location, how weak is the signal in bad areas? Are the client device used in these areas disadvantaged in having poor antennas or low transmitter power? These lead to an estimate if just moving the router will suffice, versus adding access point(s).

 

[thiggins]

Yes. Using a powerline link between modem and router will work.

 

[misfiringsystem]

^^You're right, I've never really done any testing on my adapter, so I will give that a try.

edit: My adapter is definitely a problem. I'm using a Asus USB N adapter, and even my netbook's wireless G adapter outperforms it, by 2x the speed, on speedtest.net. They were exactly the same when placed beside the router, but when I tested them at where my computer is, then the problem shows.

I want to make sure something.

If my network is like this

A modem -> router -> powerline & computers connected on the router

B powerline with N -> computer (connected wired or wirelessly)

The computer that is on B should be able to see all the computers on A and vice versa right? Meaning that they can all share files and printers?

Last question is, would wireless N be able to achieve the same internet speed as directly connecting to a router (right now router is maxed at 22 Mbps). I could either have the powerline adapter go straight to my computer, or get a wireless powerline adapter and have everyone receive N signal.

 

[thiggins]

Sorry, but I don't follow your network configuration.

802.11n is capable of supporting > 20 Mbps speeds, but it depends on distance and adapters used.

Ethernet connection will provide the same performance, regardless of distance and with much steadier throughput than wireless.

 

[misfiringsystem]

How's the QoS service on the DHP-1320? Or is there any other routers out there that you would recommend if I wanted QoS?

Reason I'm asking is cause I have 4 people in my network, 2 of each loves to stream movies and they're always hogging the bandwidth, making it almost impossible for me to even browse the internet.

Thanks thiggins

 

[thiggins]

How's the QoS service on the DHP-1320? Or is there any other routers out there that you would recommend if I wanted QoS?

Nothing special. 4 level priority for upstream only.

You'd want something that allows up and downstream control of bandwidth. Use the Router Finder and set the QoS filters for Type and Direction to Both to find suitable products.