What wireless/modem setup for old house with thick damp walls

[ian2000]

Hi folks, can anyone advise what's best for this situation? I currently use an old Netgear wireless router modem and even with two Netgear repeaters, coverage in the house ranges from poor to non-existent.

I read about the E4200 with good wireless but Cisco advised I could not use this because I would need a PPoE DSL modem and my service provider (BT) offers only PPoE.

I see there are a number of modemless wireless routers (Ubiquiti for ex + E4200) and i had thought that a DSL modem would handle the PPoA/E piece so that I could pair up any wireless router. I guess I have that wrong and in any event, what would be the best choice of ADSL modem?

So you can tell from my language I am rather a novice in these matters, but any help would be greatly appreciated,

Many thanks
Ian

 

[stevech]

please tell us a bit more....
Sq ft of house? How many stories?
Walls are drywall or lath&plaster?

Current problem with poor coverage: Do you mean that the user (client) devices (handhelds, laptops, etc) show very weak signals? At what distance from the router (not a repeater)?

I'd like to eliminate the possibility that some connectivity problems are due to the repeaters (WDS).

With this, we can advise on how to proceed.
Generally, it's better to use access points than repeaters if they ARE needed. Connect them to the router via cat5 cable or HomePlug devices, which we can explain if they are applicable.

 

[ian2000]

Hi Stevech, thanks for your swift reply.

My house is an old Dorset farm house. It is an L section with a total floor area of approx 1200 sq ft. The accommodation is over three floors, with the top floor being what was once attic space. My ADSL connection and current wireless router is situated on the top floor at the end of one of the L sections. The distance from the router to the furthest part of the house is about 50 feet, diagonally down from the top floor to the ground floor at the other end of the L section. The top floor is about 25 feet up. The walls are double layer stone with rubble between and between 18" and 30" in depth. Interior walls are plastered over. Intermediate floors are classic timber and board construction.

The repeaters were added so that I could spool music without interruption from the top floor to a point almost vertically below the wireless router, some 20 feet below. Without the repeater this was not possible. Even with repeater I still cannot obtain reception at places diametrically opposite of the router.

I have tried homeplug devices (Powerline) which do not deliver sufficient bandwidth to avoid the intermittent spooling problem. I use lossless audio so more demands than MP3.

Hope this is useful and thanks for your help.

Regards

Ian

 

[stevech]

I'm surprised that HomePlug AV (200Mbps or more) provides too low bandwith/capacity for audio - which would be far less than 1Mbps.
Perhaps it was a too-weak signal causing intermittent loss of connectivity.

 

[ian2000]

For the last 6 months or so, my email exchange server connection has been intermittently dropping, leading me to believe that I might have a broadband problem. BT, my ISP advised that I try a new modem/router lest that was the problem. I then reviewed the market offerings thinking it was about time I moved to wireless N anyway, so as to overcome the poor wireless coverage. So whilst I might end up using the homeplug AV, I should really sort out a new wireless modem which might, if I get it right, alleviate the need for homeplug.

So put another way, is there a decent wireless n modem router that I could try (I thought the Cisco E4200 spec was good for wireless and thus prepared to see if that improved the situation but alas, as I stated the Cisco contact said it would not be possible). That might address the dropping connection (well perhaps) and get me into the 21st century and then if I still have the wireless coverage problem, I could at least use the homeplug in the knowledge that it was the only solution.

What do you think?

 

[thiggins]

Wireless N is not going to improve range. It provides higher bandwidth at a given distance if you have strong to medium strength signals. This is not the case in your home.

If you are determined to try wireless, get a single band 2.4 GHz router, like the Cisco Linksys E1200. With your walls, 5 GHz will probably not even go through a single wall, so you're just wasting money buying a dual-band router.

I agree with Stevech that you should give HomePlug AV a try. The 200 Mbps technology is much improved from the original 14 Mbps homeplug. Streaming audio, even lossless should be a piece of cake.