best router for concrete house

[lookouthere]

I need a wireless n router for concrete house. it need to penetrate at least 2 stories. Does anyone know which brand has more stable connection? SMC or DLink?

 

[JackMDS]

The general approach that I take for Coverage issues is the following.

The best way is to lay few CAT6 cables to central locations in the house, install Access Points, or Cable/DSL Routers configured as an Access Points ( Using a Wireless Cable/DSL Router as a Switch with an Access Point ), and connect them to the Main Router.

You do not want/can not/hate/your client hate to lay Cables.

This is a very good choice.



You start with One affordable Router that can Do WDS (the reason for the WDS support is in case you need to add more Wireless hardware).

If you are lucky and your environment is conducive to get covered with one Wireless Router you are done.

Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833162134

To do WDS you flashed with DD-WRT firmware ( http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ).

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/ind..._Linked_router_network


Using a Laptop loaded with Netstumbler, do a Wireless survey in the house, http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/

According to the Netstumbler's signal strength reading, identify spots that have strong signal. and spot with weak, or No signal.

Evaluate how you can cover the space and start placing WDS units.

Additional Wireless Routers in WDS Mode (Wireless Network - Configuration Modes. ) has to be placed in spots were the signal is good about Half way to the dead spots.

How many WDS units are needed? It depends on your specific environment (that is a good the reason to buying WDS units one at the time, try it, and decide on the Next step).

Otherwise.

Extending Distance - http://www.ezlan.net/Distance.html
Wireless Router as an AP - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html
Wireless Modes - http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Modes.html
Wireless Bridging - http://www.ezlan.net/bridging.html
Hi Gain Antenna - http://www.ezlan.net/antennae.html

 

[Modelworks]

When you say concrete do you mean concrete block or solid concrete poured walls ? The block kind can be dealt with using antennas and better placement. Solid concrete walls are ,plainly put, a bitch at 2.4ghz frequencies. If it is solid concrete you might consider dropping to 900Mhz wifi, but that will limit speeds , or run cables.

 

[lookouthere]

will 5ghz frequency help? It's actually in a apartment style house. It's hard to run CAT6 cable over the the stairs.

 

[JackMDS]

5GHz penetrate wall even less than 2.4GHz.

If you can Not use cable, Do WDS.

At least one of the None Cable solutions that I mentioned in my post early should work. unfortunately you have to read the content of the links.

 

[lookouthere]

i still don't really understand. Right now, there is a wireless g router on third floor. The mbps reading on the wireless g notebook is 11-12. If I change to wireless N router with wireless N notebook, will the signal strength increase? As I said before, it's concrete with steel.

http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-D...&qid=1245239980&sr=8-2
SMC SMCWGBR14s-N
Buffalo High Power N

which one might be better?

 

[Modelworks]

You could try powerline ethernet. Depending on the wiring in the apartment it may or may not work. Concrete and steel is very hard for signal to penetrate. The lower the frequency you use the better the chance you have at passing a signal through it, but that also limits the connection throughput. There are commercial solutions for passing signal through such walls, but we are talking thousands of $$$.

http://www.amazon.com/Actionte...&qid=1245257435&sr=8-4


Use powerline to get it to the upper floors then use a wifi router.

 

[SammyJr]

No easy/cheap answer. The best answer for complete wireless coverage is to run cable to each floor. Then use something like a SonicWall NSA as your firewall/wireless controller and set a SonicPoint on each floor.

 

[somethingsketchy]

Originally posted by: lookouthere
i still don't really understand. Right now, there is a wireless g router on third floor. The mbps reading on the wireless g notebook is 11-12. If I change to wireless N router with wireless N notebook, will the signal strength increase? As I said before, it's concrete with steel.

What is happening is that the higher frequencies have less "penetrating power". Since a 5GHz signal has a shorter wave than a 2.4GHz signal, the concrete wall will readily "limit" the signal's "penetrating power" to go from one side of the wall to another. It also doesn't help if the concrete slab is a wall or a floor slab (as floor slabs will be thicker than a concrete wall, depending on the size of the building). Your best bet would be to run multiple wireless points, propably one every couple of rooms, or at least one per floor (of the building).

 

[kevnich2]

Originally posted by: SammyJr
No easy/cheap answer. The best answer for complete wireless coverage is to run cable to each floor. Then use something like a SonicWall NSA as your firewall/wireless controller and set a SonicPoint on each floor.

You don't anything like this for a residential house. I would recommend running cables to each floor and putting a dedicated WAP on each floor for maximum coverage but you don't need a wireless controller for such a small setup - unless you've got loads of $$ to throw away. I ran cable in my house to every room and have a WAP at either side of my house so I get maximum signal everywhere I am.

 

[kevnich2]

And yes, 5ghz N has less penetrating power but most N routers you see right now are 2.4ghz frequency. I don't see many that run on 5ghz, there are a few though. If you want better strength and more penetrating power, stick with 2.4ghz. Now if your in an area with a ton of other 2.4ghz routers (such as apt), you'll need to go to 5ghz and just run quite a few more AP's to make up for loss of signal. 5ghz band is MUCH less crowded than 2.4ghz.

 

[Modelworks]

An easy way to explain why different frequencies work better in some situations , like with trees, walls, floors in the path is to look at the length of the actual wave.
100Mhz (FM Radio range) - 118 inches
700Mhz - 16.8 inches
900Mhz - 13 inches
2.4Ghz - 4.9 inches
5Ghz - 2.3 inches

Basically what that means is if the wave tries to pass through an object that is thicker than its length, it can't.
When you add in things like steel+concrete those distances are even less.

 

[JackMDS]

Yap, the old days of CQ twenty. :brokenheart:

http://www.eham.net/newham/bands

With 14MHz (20 meters) band, and 100 Watt SSQ, you can do the whole planet.

Why? Coz it goes up to the Heaviside layer in the atmosphere, and from their get reflected to every place. Kind of nature Satellite.
:thumbsup:
http://www.oliverheaviside.com/

 

[SammyJr]

Originally posted by: kevnich2

Originally posted by: SammyJr
No easy/cheap answer. The best answer for complete wireless coverage is to run cable to each floor. Then use something like a SonicWall NSA as your firewall/wireless controller and set a SonicPoint on each floor.

You don't anything like this for a residential house. I would recommend running cables to each floor and putting a dedicated WAP on each floor for maximum coverage but you don't need a wireless controller for such a small setup - unless you've got loads of $$ to throw away. I ran cable in my house to every room and have a WAP at either side of my house so I get maximum signal everywhere I am.

Need? How much of this hobby is about need?

 

[gadvget]

One of the best, well educated Review I have seen in recent past.

VM

The general approach that I take for Coverage issues is the following.

The best way is to lay few CAT6 cables to central locations in the house, install Access Points, or Cable/DSL Routers configured as an Access Points ( Using a Wireless Cable/DSL Router as a Switch with an Access Point ), and connect them to the Main Router.

You do not want/can not/hate/your client hate to lay Cables.

This is a very good choice.



You start with One affordable Router that can Do WDS (the reason for the WDS support is in case you need to add more Wireless hardware).

If you are lucky and your environment is conducive to get covered with one Wireless Router you are done.

Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833162134

To do WDS you flashed with DD-WRT firmware ( http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ).

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/ind..._Linked_router_network


Using a Laptop loaded with Netstumbler, do a Wireless survey in the house, http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/

According to the Netstumbler's signal strength reading, identify spots that have strong signal. and spot with weak, or No signal.

Evaluate how you can cover the space and start placing WDS units.

Additional Wireless Routers in WDS Mode (Wireless Network - Configuration Modes. ) has to be placed in spots were the signal is good about Half way to the dead spots.

How many WDS units are needed? It depends on your specific environment (that is a good the reason to buying WDS units one at the time, try it, and decide on the Next step).

Otherwise.

Extending Distance - http://www.ezlan.net/Distance.html
Wireless Router as an AP - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html
Wireless Modes - http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Modes.html
Wireless Bridging - http://www.ezlan.net/bridging.html
Hi Gain Antenna - http://www.ezlan.net/antennae.html