Need to go wireless at home

Matthew

Matthew

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Matthew
Currently have DSL with the PC hardwired to the model. Because of some rearranging/remodeling I need to move the PC to a location away from the modem. We're also looking to connect up with a laptop.

Pretty simple stuff so far.

My questions - what is the range on a wireless router? I have a two-storey house, any issues with reaching from one end to the other? One floor to another? Also, any recommendations on brands? What about the 802.11g vs Super G?
 
We have our router in the southeast wing of the house (sounds more impressive than "spare bedroom" :D ) and have no problem with reception anywhere, even the basement.
 
I had to add an access point in the basement to get coverage throughout the house with some spillover outside (not to worry -- nearest neighbor is 1/2 mile away!).
 
Matthew said:
My questions - what is the range on a wireless router? I have a two-storey house, any issues with reaching from one end to the other? One floor to another?
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It depends on the house construction. I have 802.11g in a 3-story Victorian with 1" thick internal plaster walls. The wireless signal punches through drywall and 2x4 wood just fine, but it doesn't do well through concrete, brick, and stone. I have to keep the router near the center of the house in order to get good signal on all floors and corners. OTOH, the signal easily punches >300' out through a window in my house, across two yards, and throughout my friend & neighbor's new construction house. ;)
 
If you have trouble with signal strength when you're done, you can always add a repeater to boost the signal into the far reaches of your home/mansion/castle/whatever (although you might have trouble in a castle as Ed mentioned). I've had good luck with Linksys and Netgear over the years, and things haven't worked out for me personally with D-Link routers in the past, though I know some people that swear by them.

The IEEE standard is still 802.11g AFAIK, so until IEEE releases the full 802.11n standard (slated mid-'08 last I heard), I think any of the "Super G" and "Draft N" gimmicks you see are just that -- marketing gimmicks. You will probably see some throughput improvements, but it's nothing to write home about.

I've seen typical working ranges for the newer "higher end" routers, indoors, is in the order of 100 feet (maybe 150'), assuming thinner walls, and not too much interference (microwaves, 2.4GHz. cordless phones, etc.). Outdoors you can get closer to 300'.
 
No matter what you do, make sure you set it up to require a password to log on to your network... otherwise, you'll have every freeloader in range bumming free internet off of you.
 
Do not buy or attempt to use any of the 'N' spec routers on the market today. I have yet to see one that worked as advertised and I've seen many that out of the box, wouldn't work at all.

You won't go wrong with a Linksys or Netgear 802.11G router.
 
kevin47881 said:
We have our router in the southeast wing of the house (sounds more impressive than "spare bedroom" :D ) and have no problem with reception anywhere, even the basement.
Click to expand...
Move it to the other end and you can say the networking equipment is located in the "West Wing." :)

At my old condo, I initially had wireless for the computer downstairs. There was all of three walls and less than fifty feet distance. The signal went up and down like the tide on an hourly basis. I finally gave up and ran a hundred foot stretch of cable through the various areas to hide it best. My connection was constant and good strength. I'll never go back to wireless. In fact, I'm waiting for the fall when temperatures comes back down so I can run permanent cables through the attic.

When I bought the Media Center box for a DVR, I ran a cable down the hallway. I wasn't about to depend on wireless for it to download the cable guide as scheduled.
 
You may get the range to cover the whole house but the performance drops rapidly as you get further away from the base station.

Talk to Jason about setting up a hacked Linksys WRT to be a repeater.
 
t0r0nad0 said:
No matter what you do, make sure you set it up to require a password to log on to your network... otherwise, you'll have every freeloader in range bumming free internet off of you.
Click to expand...

Yep. My daughter's high school loans all the students Palm Pilots each year. The one she had last year, a Treo I think, had built in wireless. The first thing I did was to snoop around and find 4 networks within range of our kitchen, two were unsecured.
 
For some reason I bought the Apple Airport to go with my macbook, and even at 10% broadcast power, I get a full 5 bars of signal strength anywhere in my home or yard. Fast and easy to set up.
 
Bill Jennings said:
For some reason I bought the Apple Airport to go with my macbook, and even at 10% broadcast power, I get a full 5 bars of signal strength anywhere in my home or yard. Fast and easy to set up.
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The new one, the Airport Extreme that looks like the Apple TV?

I'm tempted to get one of those myself.
 
mikea said:
The new one, the Airport Extreme that looks like the Apple TV?

I'm tempted to get one of those myself.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Airport Extreme. I went for it on the off chance I want to do Apple TV at some point. :dunno:
 
I pick up my wireless signal out in the park behind my apartment, 13 stories lower!

You better believe it is secured, I get 9 unsecured wireless networks in my living room, and scores of secured ones.
 
Personally I've had trouble getting decent range out of a Linksys access point. I currently use a D-Link access point, not router, that does 802.11 A, B & G. 802.11A is in the 5Ghz range where as 802.11 B&G are in the 2.4Ghz frequency range which is rather crowded with things like microwave ovens, many cordless phones and a host of other things. While these other things may not be on the same frequency they can generate noise that can interfere. A friend of mine lives in a city that is rolling out wireless throughout the city. Unfortunately for him the nearest access point is on the fringe for him but he told me that it worked great during a power outage. Apparently no one in the neighborhood could use their microwave ovens or cordless phones during the power outage. The range on my D-Link is great, far better than I had on my Linksys.

In my opinion as an IT security administrator make certain that you understand wireless security or get some help securing your wireless network. I personally use WPA encryption with a 65 character long key consisting of random gibberish. You won't want people in your immediate neighborhood, or the wardrivers parking outside, to use your wireless access point to do illegal activities on your internet connection or to access your computers.

Best of luck,
Jeannie
 
My Belkin54g is 2 floors up and 75 feet across from my computer in the basement and I get 4 of 5 bars on a linksys router. I found a remote ant works the best by getting it away from all of the cables in the back.
 
JRitt said:
My Belkin54g is 2 floors up and 75 feet across from my computer in the basement and I get 4 of 5 bars on a linksys router. I found a remote ant works the best by getting it away from all of the cables in the back.
Click to expand...
On the setup I described earlier, I bought high-gain external antennas for both the router and the card in the computer resulting in not a shred of difference.
 
Joe Gremlin said:
Do not buy or attempt to use any of the 'N' spec routers on the market today. I have yet to see one that worked as advertised and I've seen many that out of the box, wouldn't work at all.

You won't go wrong with a Linksys or Netgear 802.11G router.
Click to expand...


I had nothing but issues with every Linksys I ever bought--would have to power cycle them several times per day (would just lock up).

No problems since I went to D-Link. Upgraded from DLink 802.11b to the new 802.11n (http://support.dlink.com/products/view.asp?productid=DIR-655) DIR-655 six months ago, and it's been blazing fast, no issues, great coverage.

Guests that visit our home have no problems connecting (HP, Dell, IBM laptops) once I give them the "key" and I add their MAC address to the router (I use all available security levels).

Two-story 2550 sq. foot home, router is upstairs by the cable modem, fairly centrally located.
 
Maverick said:
In my opinion as an IT security administrator make certain that you understand wireless security or get some help securing your wireless network. I personally use WPA encryption with a 65 character long key consisting of random gibberish. You won't want people in your immediate neighborhood, or the wardrivers parking outside, to use your wireless access point to do illegal activities on your internet connection or to access your computers.

Best of luck,
Jeannie
Click to expand...

I'm a computer jock, too - and a belt & suspenders guy. I'll probably have that thing set up so tight that I'll have trouble getting in myself.

I'll probably have the router set up in a fairly central part of the house. It's your typical frame construction, no lead shielded, Faraday caged, steel and concrete walled safe rooms. I've just heard about folks who have had problems getting a good signal within their own house. I suppose that since my cordless phone works all over the house that a wireless router would also (except for the small problem of data loss and slower transfer speeds due to signal quality problems).

Thanks for the ideas. We are having to convert our computer room into an extra bedroom and I need to spread all our stuff around the house.
 
I've got the new Apple Airport Extreme Base station (-N). It's incredible, with an -N capable card (standard in all new Macs) speeds are 5x's as fast (ask me how I know this). Range is great in my two story brick house. Where as my Linksys wireless G had some trouble getting to my room (bought a range extender for it)

We also have a 450GB passworded HD connected straight to the router, with any Mac or PC in the house, just enter the password and you can back up your files with pretty good transfer rates. I must say though, anything massive needs to be wired straight into the computer. It's great for sharing files
 
I just have the plain old Lynksis "standard" wireless router. Centrally located and my neighbors can see it on their screen. (security doesn't let them log on) but they can see it as a network.
Cost 55.00 at best buy I think. Had it a couple of years and no problems.
 
RossFischer said:
I've got the new Apple Airport Extreme Base station (-N). It's incredible, with an -N capable card (standard in all new Macs) speeds are 5x's as fast (ask me how I know this). Range is great in my two story brick house.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I cannot detect any difference between the -N and being plugged directly into the ethernet. Very fast, and I get signal anywhere in my house or yard with broadcast power set to 10%.
 
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