Best way to utilise cable speed in student house with wifi

I was thinking powerlines that go into a upstairs socket with a range extender but is there any better way.

Its only 50 meg at minute but being upgraded to 100, I stayed there for a few days and even downstairs in the room next to rotuer signal was all over the place i.e unless laptop was at a certain angle got nothing, even with it worked it went between 10-40 meg so was thinking a range extender on each floor of the house

You will need at least 500Mbps adapters to handle a 100Mbps connection, so don't go lower and cheaper. I just found a recent PC Advisor comparative test of a few that might help you choose.

Is there no way you could install Ethernet cabling to various rooms without damaging the house fabric, and put WAPs at the end of them? That would be far better and cheaper. In case you don't know, the maximum cable length for CAT5 Ethernet cable is 100 metres. That's each cable, not the total from the router.

I would try and stick with either using Wi-Fi and Ethernet cables and stay away from Powerline Adapters.

1 they send the data over your mains cable so buildings around you could possibly pick them up.
2 if you get to many on the mains it ends up defeating the point.
3 If there is a amateur radio user living very close, they wouldn't been very happy.

I am an amateur radio user myself and that's why we don't use any powerline adapters here.

Most of our house has ethernet cables between our walls, under the floors and in the loft space.
Only the old cables are still visible due to me being too lazy to replace those LOL.

Also to extend the maximum length of 100m you can put a network switch in the middle of the building allowing up-to twice that length

Paul

I think you meant to reply to the OP. Who says the WiFi is useless.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I think you meant to reply to the OP. Who says the WiFi is useless.

Erm, well I was replying to both of you

Paul

In reply to a post by mittenkrust:

I was thinking powerlines that go into a upstairs socket with a range extender but is there any better way.

Its only 50 meg at minute but being upgraded to 100, I stayed there for a few days and even downstairs in the room next to rotuer signal was all over the place i.e unless laptop was at a certain angle got nothing, even with it worked it went between 10-40 meg so was thinking a range extender on each floor of the house

It really depends which Virginmedia superhub you have, if it's the 2.4Ghz only version it's never going to deliver.

If you have the AC one then I would say probably something wrong with your laptop or a faulty router. I get a full 200 (yes 200) Mbps over 5Ghz WiFi with the virginmedia superhub AC. I have a wireless AC capable laptop.

This even stays the same speed in the room above the hub.

I would avoid range extenders, as these by default half the speed you get, so you'll just be cutting the speed more and more.

I would get dual band, wireless AC access points, and hard wire them into the main hub.

Although first check you have 1) Used the 5Ghz band, not the 2.4Ghz band when you connected 2) Have a wireless AC capable laptop

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 13-Dec-15 02:12:05)

My laptop only has a 2.4 connection despite it costing well over a grand as its a gaming laptop (didnt even have blu ray with it) and being under 2 years old where my older media laptop had a 5 connection.

But there is only one tiny bedroom downstairs right next to living room, its only about 15 feet from router to bedroom but a wall in the way, but its an older router as I have the newer hub(though not the very newest as I am told I need a new one to get 200 meg at home)

And cant install ethernet as the bedrooms are upstairs.

The residents are semi happy with it as they are not heavy users just the usual youtube and spotify so its fast enough but when I showed them wired speeds they were shocked as they were used to random speed drops

Best solution would be Ethernet. When I was a student in Manchester we chained two Airport Extremes together to provide coverage around the house, one acting as a wifi extended and the other the main router.

Once setup it was reliable enough but not optimum by any means.

Edited by deleted (Sun 13-Dec-15 09:42:18)

On your points

1. In the same way that any signal could be picked up, data is encrypted over HomePlugs, hence why you have to pair them up.
2. Too many? Well yes if you add 100 plugs then things would be made, but 3 plugs to feed 2 wireless access points is not problem.
3. On the amateur radio while there is a lot of complaints from a small number, generally seems to be no worse than any other device. Am sure Ofcom would have mentioned them as major problems in their recent PR if there really was.

Devolo HomePlugs £64.99 for the starter kit that will create one extra wireless access point, and then you add extra ones for £36 each.

There are wireless access points you can add via Ethernet to the existing Virgin Media router e.g. Netgear AP but you cannot guarantee coverage until you try it in the property. Plenty of people with wooden floors can cover three floors but if you have a concrete floors you might not even make it through that.