Have you ever seen a decent sized house with 5 ghz and one router?

[Blanky]

My 5ghz experiments have been woefully unsuccessful. I know my router isn't great (although I had similarly bad experience with an Asus nt66), but the range is so bad that unless I'm within 20 feet of the router (not exaggerating), I don't bother. The range of 5ghz is of course known to be bad, but I'm wondering if it's even feasible to have strong 5ghz in a multi-level house without having to use access points?

With AC being the current best gen, is there any hope for us that in the next few years we'll see a wifi connection in a house that effortlessly covers the whole thing with lots of speed? It seems lame to me that my phone can go hundreds of meters at broadband speeds but at home there is no good option.

When 5 ghz works, it's incredibly fast, many times faster than 2.4, but its range is so bad!

Speaking of which, what's the fastest you typically have for a 2.4 in your house? I can't seem to pull more than about 20-30 mbps on 2.4 even next to any of my routers, but wired into the network I crank along fast.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Same problem here. 2.4GHz barely covers the house, 5GHz leaves the living room wifi-less.

Repeaters are garbage.

I probably should experiment a bit more with WAP placement though.

 

[Blanky]

Same problem here. 2.4GHz barely covers the house, 5GHz leaves the living room wifi-less.

Repeaters are garbage.

I probably should experiment a bit more with WAP placement though.

I'm now up to three routers total, one for each floor. I got them for almost nothing, but I feel there has to be a better way than this, it just seems so silly. All are wired in, but two are single band so only one has 5 ghz and gives me awesome coverage in two rooms only, nothing else.

With one router centrally placed i still was finding that on distant corners my streaming video was very hit or miss (and that only requires several mbps), hence deciding to just assault the whole house in more coverage (and of course fiddling with inssider first to little avail).

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'm now up to three routers total, one for each floor. I got them for almost nothing, but I feel there has to be a better way than this, it just seems so silly. All are wired in, but two are single band so only one has 5 ghz and gives me awesome coverage in two rooms only, nothing else.

5GHz is shorter, and it depends a lot on environment. (What your house is made out of.)

It also depends on client devices - they have to be powerful enough to punch a signal back to the router through whatever environment hazards are around. I've seen a lot of wifi problems because somebody had their client device screwed up, but they'd always blame the wifi network first because reasons.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

With one router centrally placed i still was finding that on distant corners my streaming video was very hit or miss (and that only requires several mbps), hence deciding to just assault the whole house in more coverage (and of course fiddling with inssider first to little avail).

More expensive routers will have radio power adjustments. I also added bigger antennae to mine.

 

[Blanky]

More expensive routers will have radio power adjustments. I also added bigger antennae to mine.

Is 5ghz limited by fcc rules and if so I wonder if they will change?

 

[azazel1024]

Is 5ghz limited by fcc rules and if so I wonder if they will change?

Of course it is limited by FCC rules. Also, they have changed, FCC just opened the UNI-I from 50mw max transmit power and indoor use only, to outdoor use and 1w, just like UNI-III is.

That said, no, the FCC is extremely unlikely to increase the limits beyond 1w. It won't help if they did anyway, most wifi clients EVEN IN LAPTOPS are limited to around 32mw of transmit power 2.4/5GHz. They are very power constrained. The base station being stronger doesn't really help, because you have power balance issues. Client can hear the base station, but the base station can't hear the client, so you can't have a working connection (at a minimum the client has to send ack packets to say it heard the transmissions, can't do that, can't have a working connection).

So unless you are bridging base stations, having the basestation more than about 2-3x stronger than the client doesn't really do anything at all.

Of course 5GHz is worse than 2.4GHz indoors. It is absorbed roughly twice as well as 2.4GHz. A typical 2x4 and 1/2" drywall indoor wall will attenuate a 2.4GHz signal about 4-5dB if the signal is roughly perpendicular. That means for 5Ghz it attenuates it roughly 7-8dB. Wireless signals also attenuate based on the inverse square law, that means for every doubling of distance (with NO obstructions) the signal is reduced 6dB.

So the wireless signal at 16ft and through a single wall is going to be around 10-11dB weaker than standing 8ft away and line of sight for 2.4GHz. For 5GHz it is going to be roughly 13-14dB weaker. Get two walls in the way and 24ft and you are talking 16-18dB weaker for 2.4GHz and around 20+dB weaker for 5Ghz.

It adds up quickly, especially when the signal is not passing perpendicular through the wall, or your body is in the way (which generates about 4-6dB of attenuation on 2.4GHz and 7-9dB in 5GHz), or furniture is in the way, the device is held at a bad angle, etc.

5GHz will always suck in doors. Outside though with no obstructions, it behaves roughly as well as 2.4GHz (atmospheric attenuation of 2.4GHz and 5GHz is extremely low. In bad weather, such as a heavy downpour or snow, 2.4GHz does outperform 5GHz as water absorbtion of microwaves peaks at around 21GHz, but even in a heavy blizzard or downpour, the amount of actual water between base station and client is pretty minimal, but it does reduce the signal some, 5Ghz a little more than 2.4GHz).

So 5GHz is generally going to be a same room, up to maybe 1-2 rooms away solution and 2.4GHz somewhat further. With my Archer C8 in my 2-story rancher (basement and main level), I get complete 5GHz coverage in my basement at good speeds. Its 1,000sq-ft basement with the router in one corner. To my tablet I can get about 5MB/sec in the worst spot (its an N150 adapter in the tablet). On my mainlevel, because there are more walls and the signal also has to go through the floor to get there, I have coverage over about half of my 1350sq-ft main level before the signal becomes unusable on 5GHz. I can cover my entire house on 2.4GHz, though at the further locations, not well.

If you centrally located the router on the main level, I could likely cover my entire house with 5GHz, if a bit slow in the further corners. So, over two levels, realistic coverage of maybe 2,000sq-ft on 5Ghz and call it 3,000sq-ft on 2.4GHz over two levels.

As for performance, don't know what to tell you. To my tablet I can get 88Mbps on 2.4GHz and 78Mbps on 5GHz (40MHz mode for both). To my laptop I can get 198Mbps on 2.4GHz 40MHz and 204Mbps on 5GHz 40MHz from my WDR3600. From my Acher C8 I get basically the same tablet performance (though better performance at long range on 2.4GHz and 5GHz), but my laptop I can get 228Mbps on 2.4GHz and 498Mbps on 5Ghz in the same room as the router.

 

[kevnich2]

I'm now up to three routers total, one for each floor. I got them for almost nothing, but I feel there has to be a better way than this, it just seems so silly. All are wired in, but two are single band so only one has 5 ghz and gives me awesome coverage in two rooms only, nothing else.

With one router centrally placed i still was finding that on distant corners my streaming video was very hit or miss (and that only requires several mbps), hence deciding to just assault the whole house in more coverage (and of course fiddling with inssider first to little avail).

You may want to take a look at either ubiquiti unifi or open-mesh AP's. The ubiquiti can be ceiling mounted and aesthetically, they blend right in. For larger houses, it's what I recommend as opposed to using actual wireless router's with all the settings you have to adjust. With these you run the wire to your ceiling, install them and essentially forget about them. I'm at two currently at either sides of the house and they provide decent coverage all over.

 

[azazel1024]

Downside to Unifi is that if you want to use their seamless roaming, all APs must be on the same channel, which reduces maximum bandwidth across the wireless network, even if it does make for a somewhat more seamless experience than relying on client based roaming. That and anything other than the basic N300 Unifi pucks are really expensive.

 

[Blanky]

Of course it is limited by FCC rules. Also, they have changed, FCC just opened the UNI-I from 50mw max transmit power and indoor use only, to outdoor use and 1w, just like UNI-III is.

That said, no, the FCC is extremely unlikely to increase the limits beyond 1w. It won't help if they did anyway, most wifi clients EVEN IN LAPTOPS are limited to around 32mw of transmit power 2.4/5GHz. They are very power constrained. The base station being stronger doesn't really help, because you have power balance issues. Client can hear the base station, but the base station can't hear the client, so you can't have a working connection (at a minimum the client has to send ack packets to say it heard the transmissions, can't do that, can't have a working connection).

So unless you are bridging base stations, having the basestation more than about 2-3x stronger than the client doesn't really do anything at all.

Of course 5GHz is worse than 2.4GHz indoors. It is absorbed roughly twice as well as 2.4GHz. A typical 2x4 and 1/2" drywall indoor wall will attenuate a 2.4GHz signal about 4-5dB if the signal is roughly perpendicular. That means for 5Ghz it attenuates it roughly 7-8dB. Wireless signals also attenuate based on the inverse square law, that means for every doubling of distance (with NO obstructions) the signal is reduced 6dB.

So the wireless signal at 16ft and through a single wall is going to be around 10-11dB weaker than standing 8ft away and line of sight for 2.4GHz. For 5GHz it is going to be roughly 13-14dB weaker. Get two walls in the way and 24ft and you are talking 16-18dB weaker for 2.4GHz and around 20+dB weaker for 5Ghz.

It adds up quickly, especially when the signal is not passing perpendicular through the wall, or your body is in the way (which generates about 4-6dB of attenuation on 2.4GHz and 7-9dB in 5GHz), or furniture is in the way, the device is held at a bad angle, etc.

5GHz will always suck in doors. Outside though with no obstructions, it behaves roughly as well as 2.4GHz (atmospheric attenuation of 2.4GHz and 5GHz is extremely low. In bad weather, such as a heavy downpour or snow, 2.4GHz does outperform 5GHz as water absorbtion of microwaves peaks at around 21GHz, but even in a heavy blizzard or downpour, the amount of actual water between base station and client is pretty minimal, but it does reduce the signal some, 5Ghz a little more than 2.4GHz).

So 5GHz is generally going to be a same room, up to maybe 1-2 rooms away solution and 2.4GHz somewhat further. With my Archer C8 in my 2-story rancher (basement and main level), I get complete 5GHz coverage in my basement at good speeds. Its 1,000sq-ft basement with the router in one corner. To my tablet I can get about 5MB/sec in the worst spot (its an N150 adapter in the tablet). On my mainlevel, because there are more walls and the signal also has to go through the floor to get there, I have coverage over about half of my 1350sq-ft main level before the signal becomes unusable on 5GHz. I can cover my entire house on 2.4GHz, though at the further locations, not well.

If you centrally located the router on the main level, I could likely cover my entire house with 5GHz, if a bit slow in the further corners. So, over two levels, realistic coverage of maybe 2,000sq-ft on 5Ghz and call it 3,000sq-ft on 2.4GHz over two levels.

As for performance, don't know what to tell you. To my tablet I can get 88Mbps on 2.4GHz and 78Mbps on 5GHz (40MHz mode for both). To my laptop I can get 198Mbps on 2.4GHz 40MHz and 204Mbps on 5GHz 40MHz from my WDR3600. From my Acher C8 I get basically the same tablet performance (though better performance at long range on 2.4GHz and 5GHz), but my laptop I can get 228Mbps on 2.4GHz and 498Mbps on 5Ghz in the same room as the router.

Thanks for the detailed post.

Regarding the access points I did try them all on the same ssid but my devices were not grabbing the best one all the time, and even going airplane mode and back right away wasn't cutting it, so now I have multiple ssids. Sounds like with better hardware like that mentioned above I can have a properly working same-ssid throughout the house.

 

[Eug]

In my 3900 square foot house with the latest 802.11ac Apple Airport Extreme, I can just get 5 GHz support 2 rooms over, but it's unreliable at that distance through that many walls, and even when it does work, it's slower than 2.4 GHz. So, no point.

At that distance, support for 2.4 GHz is good with Apple iPad Air 2 and my MacBook Pro. However, with my iPhone 5s, the connection is more spotty.

I looked into getting a Unifi multiple access point system, but there are some reports of problems with them: crappy power transformer causing clicking and their zero-handoff feature not working reliably at all, making a multi-AP Unifi system pointless. Plus their 802.11ac units are very expensive.

Before the 802.11ac Airport Extreme, I had an 802.11n Airport Extreme. With the older one 2.4 GHz support was worse. Presumably it's because the new 802.11ac model has better antennae orientation. It's a small tower unit, whereas the older one looked like a thick square pancake. Because of the worse WiFi signal with the older model, I actually used to run a few additional cheap 802.11n access points to fill in the gaps. If I used the same SSID for all of them, then handoff was a really annoying problem. So, I gave each one an independent SSID - no handoffs, but I would manually switch the access point as needed, particularly when I was planning to be at the edge of the house for an extended period of time. Those cheap 802.11n access points worked well for their purpose. Weak signal, but perfect for a single room, with signal extending not far beyond that room.

 

[azazel1024]

Roaming works well for my Laptop with Win 8.1 and an Intel 7260ac in it (not that I walk around with it much), my Asus T100, iPad 2, iPhone 5, iPhone 6 (and the 4s that was before it) and Asus Memo Pad HD 7s.

The Memo Pads are the worst at it and they are still pretty decent. They'll roam before the signal gets lost, but they do sometimes stick to the weaker access point even when they are quite a bit closer to the other AP.

One thing to keep in mind with setup and design is all devices are going to require a certain minimum different in signal strength before they'll roam. Some, like Windows based clients, can be set to change their sensitivity for roaming. Others, like Apple based and most stock Android, cannot be.

The only real issue I have, is that FaceTime is NOT roaming tolerant. My iPhones and iPad will switch quickly where connectivity is lost for large fractions of a single second, that doesn't typically disrupt anything (netflix works fine, page loads typically continue to work with a pause, file transfers, etc), but FaceTime drops it like its hot the instant it switches APs. Skype semi-sort of seems to work. I haven't notice it drop, but I think I've only wandered between APs once or twice while Skyping and there was a good solid 2-3s pause, even though the dissasociate and reassociate only takes about .5-.8s.

Every other application doesn't seem to be bothered when the client switches APs.

I actually had to reduce the transmit power on my 1st floor AP to minimum levels for 2.4GHz, because it was so strong that clients didn't want to associate with the basement AP even when they were right on top of it. Leaving 5GHz at max and 2.4GHz to min got me good roaming and the coverage is awesome between the router and the AP for my whole house (based on my laptop, since it has the fastest adapter, I think the slowest speed I can get within the confines of my house is around 90-100Mbps, on my tablet which is just N150 (2.4 and 5GHz though), about 40Mbps).

 

[JackMDS]

I actually had to reduce the transmit power on my 1st floor AP to minimum levels for 2.4GHz, because it was so strong that clients didn't want to associate with the basement AP even when they were right on top of it. Leaving 5GHz at max and 2.4GHz to min got me good roaming and the coverage is awesome between the router and the AP for my whole house (based on my laptop, since it has the fastest adapter, I think the slowest speed I can get within the confines of my house is around 90-100Mbps, on my tablet which is just N150 (2.4 and 5GHz though), about 40Mbps).

Nice summary that Hi Ligh the general issue that keep coming on this Forum, and how sophisticted should be the answers.

------------------------------
The typical - What is the best Router that will cover my ""estate"" and it 20 above Wireless clients?

There is No such Magic Gizmo and the Wireless issue is much more complicated then one or two pieces of Hardware.

At best the above question is valid if the issue is small apartment (1-2 rooms) with few Wireless clients.

 

[Eug]

Yeah I have one Windows 7 laptop, 2 Mac laptops, one Nexus 7, and a bunch of iDevices. I cannot set the trigger threshold level for roaming on any of those clients.

 

[repoman0]

I get a decent 5GHz connection over 802.11ac upstairs and a few rooms + doors away. It's probably a straight distance of 40-50ft. Windows reports "5 bars" and 585mbps. I am honestly surprised it works so well -- with any previous router / wifi card combination, wifi in this particular room in the house was almost unusable and couldn't even come close to matching the 25mbps internet connection, let alone hold a stable connection. It's an old Boston area house with ridiculously thick walls and doors. My work laptop grabs ~225mbps connection with full strength consistently as well.

The router is ASUS RT68-U on stock firmware and matching AC wifi card in my desktop.

 

[alkemyst]

Keep in mind raising power levels can lower overall bandwidth.

 

[azazel1024]

Yeah I have one Windows 7 laptop, 2 Mac laptops, one Nexus 7, and a bunch of iDevices. I cannot set the trigger threshold level for roaming on any of those clients.

In windows go under the network adapter properties and the advance driver properties. Roaming should be under there. Crank it to most agressive.

In general least agreesive for most drivers means that it'll hang on to the current SSID until it is lost (effectively). In the middle it'll generally look for a new AP if the signal strength hits -70dBm and then it'll associate if another AP is at least 20dB higher in signal strength. Generally at the most agressive setting it'll start looking at -60dBm and it only takes a -15dB difference.

One of the issues of using seperate SSIDs is that all operating systems treat them as different networks, so they will NOT roam between different SSIDs unless you lose the connection to the current SSID (exception is on windows under adapter properties some/most will allow you to set "look for other networks" or something along those lines where it WILL allow you to associate with different SSIDs if the signal strength is high enough. In my experience, roaming still sucks even if you do this. Only when it is the same SSID across APs will roaming work acceptably).

Rarely is one AP/router good enough for an entire house, unless it is fairly small or else you wireless requirements are rather low (IE only worried about getting a few Mbps in the further reaches). A rough guess, if my router was centrally located in my house, between the two floors, I might have 600sq-ft of awesome 2.4GHz coverage, 1,000sq-ft of good coverage and another 1,000sq-ft of okay to poor coverage (this is between the two floors). On 5Ghz (11ac, 11n would be worse because its speeds are lower) call it more like 400sq-ft of awesome coverage, 700sq-ft of good coverage and 700sq-ft of okay to poor coverage. Excellent would be (with an AC1200 class adapter and things set to 40Mhz on 2.4GHz and 80MHz on 5GHz) at least 120Mbps or greater, good would be 40-120Mbps and okay to poor would be anything less than 40Mbps and greater than 5Mbps.

So, sure if you can place a router in the ideal spot in a house, you could cover a reasonably large house with a single router. How often is it that you can place your router dead center on the first floor of your house? Any takers?

This is also for a stick frame house (drywall over 2x4). Plaster and lathe, let alone plaster with chicken wire cuts ranges down significantly. Concrete even more. Metal duct work also cuts things down and creates wifi dead spots.

Since the typical US home is somewhere around 2,500sq-ft, that means a single centrally located router can pretty easily cover a typical US home fairly well. A larger home is NOT going to be covered or one where you can't locate the router centrally you'll have problems. In a very large minority of situations you need at least a wifi router and an access point (I have 2 APs. Router in the corner of my basement, AP roughly opposite on my main level and an AP in my garage with the antennas run a foot out through my wall to the outside the furthest from the house providing outdoor coverage). That is just for a 2,500sq-ft rancher on an acre, but that is about the only way I could get good to excellent coverage over my entire house as well as good to excellent coverage over my entire backyard (front yard coverage is only poor to good since it has to rely on the indoor router/AP for coverage, but I can at least get a connection over 90% of my front yard, but slow once I get more than 20-30ft from my house).

 

[kevnich2]

In my 3900 square foot house with the latest 802.11ac Apple Airport Extreme, I can just get 5 GHz support 2 rooms over, but it's unreliable at that distance through that many walls, and even when it does work, it's slower than 2.4 GHz. So, no point.

At that distance, support for 2.4 GHz is good with Apple iPad Air 2 and my MacBook Pro. However, with my iPhone 5s, the connection is more spotty.

I looked into getting a Unifi multiple access point system, but there are some reports of problems with them: crappy power transformer causing clicking and their zero-handoff feature not working reliably at all, making a multi-AP Unifi system pointless. Plus their 802.11ac units are very expensive.

Before the 802.11ac Airport Extreme, I had an 802.11n Airport Extreme. With the older one 2.4 GHz support was worse. Presumably it's because the new 802.11ac model has better antennae orientation. It's a small tower unit, whereas the older one looked like a thick square pancake. Because of the worse WiFi signal with the older model, I actually used to run a few additional cheap 802.11n access points to fill in the gaps. If I used the same SSID for all of them, then handoff was a really annoying problem. So, I gave each one an independent SSID - no handoffs, but I would manually switch the access point as needed, particularly when I was planning to be at the edge of the house for an extended period of time. Those cheap 802.11n access points worked well for their purpose. Weak signal, but perfect for a single room, with signal extending not far beyond that room.

Well, I use unifi AP's in my home and several businesses I do work for. They're very reliable. The AC units don't support ZH roaming...yet. If you need 5ghz, go with the pro units and yes, they're expensive but I haven't seen any other dual band enterprise class WAP's that aren't expensive and unifi's are still cheaper than cisco's and work just as well if not better.

As far as the roaming, the regular 2.4ghz only and pro units support ZH and it only doesn't work well when the placement of WAP's is too close and client's keep switching rapidly between WAP's. Once the placement is corrected, this all works fine.