Question Wifi Extender Socket - does it need a plastic backbox?

[James Thomas Jones]

Hi, I have just installed a 'BG' brand Wifi Extender Socket, but the backbox to the socket is metal - I have brick walls in my house, and three brick walls between the room I want to get WiFi in, and my router, which is a Virgin Media Hitron. I am getting no increase in signal speed from the WiFi extender socket, is this because the backbox is metal? Do I need to buy a plastic one? I can find no mention of this being a problem on the BG website, but I have read a review on Ebay that says 'another review mentioned that a metal backbox will stop this extender from working, and I had the same problem'. Many thanks in advance to anybody who can help me.

 

[SamirD]

I would use powerline or moca in your situation. Wifi extenders suck in general and they won't penetrate brick like that because wifi simply can't. You need a 'wired' method to get signal distributed and then hang whatever access points you need off that.

 

[James Thomas Jones]

Many thanks for your reply, SamirD. I hadn't heard of MOCA before. I have tried Powerline adaptors, but they were very slow, I think my house must have bad wiring. I do have an Ethernet cable from the router in the study where I am using my laptop in (I have the Ethernet cable plugged into my main PC), but I also want to use a tablet in an upstairs bedroom, which currently only gets 0.5MBps to 1MBps. In the study I get 30MBps on the laptop, but it varies, and often I find Skype calls suffer from a bad connection. So I am thinking of buying another router, plugging that into the Ethernet cable in my study, and using that to boost the Wi-Fi signal (the bedroom with the tablet in is above the study, so hopefully it will enough of a signal to speed things up there). I can then plug a second ethernet cable into the router and have that going directly into the laptop.
I read loads of positive reviews of WiFi extender sockets and believed them. Perhaps their houses don't have internal brick walls like mine does!

 

[James Thomas Jones]

Could I also ask, do you think the metal backbox on the socket could be stopping the signal? When I'm in front of the Wi-Fi extender socket, I get 30MBps, the same as I get directly from my router, but when I go in the next room (which has two walls in between it and the back of the Wi-Fi extender socket because there is an airing cupboard in between), I only get 8MBps, and the signal is weaker from the Wi-Fi extender socket than from the router (Virgin Media Hitron) which is twelve feet further away, on the other side of the room with the Wi-Fi extender socket in it. I get 8MBps from the extender socket, and 15MBps from the router - so the extender socket is much slower than the router! Pointless!

 

[SamirD]

Many thanks for your reply, SamirD. I hadn't heard of MOCA before. I have tried Powerline adaptors, but they were very slow, I think my house must have bad wiring. I do have an Ethernet cable from the router in the study where I am using my laptop in (I have the Ethernet cable plugged into my main PC), but I also want to use a tablet in an upstairs bedroom, which currently only gets 0.5MBps to 1MBps. In the study I get 30MBps on the laptop, but it varies, and often I find Skype calls suffer from a bad connection. So I am thinking of buying another router, plugging that into the Ethernet cable in my study, and using that to boost the Wi-Fi signal (the bedroom with the tablet in is above the study, so hopefully it will enough of a signal to speed things up there). I can then plug a second ethernet cable into the router and have that going directly into the laptop.
I read loads of positive reviews of WiFi extender sockets and believed them. Perhaps their houses don't have internal brick walls like mine does!

You are most welcome. I'm actually surprised you didn't have good results with powerline as the newest av1200 and av2000 models are quite impressive. Where you plug them also matters as you want them to be as close as possible electrically (similar to how wifi needs to be 'close' for optimal speeds). If you would share a bit of the house layout, I think we can find a solution that should work. The key problem is simply getting some form of wired upstairs and then going from there. I don't think an access point in the study will help much because the floors are probably concrete and as thick as the walls. (imo, the way buildings should be--the wood building methods we use here in the usa don't even last 20 years).

If it is possible to run wires in some form, coax, cat5, even old telephone wire, there is a way to use it for ethernet. Once we figure out what you have, we can definitely help you.

 

[SamirD]

Could I also ask, do you think the metal backbox on the socket could be stopping the signal? When I'm in front of the Wi-Fi extender socket, I get 30MBps, the same as I get directly from my router, but when I go in the next room (which has two walls in between it and the back of the Wi-Fi extender socket because there is an airing cupboard in between), I only get 8MBps, and the signal is weaker from the Wi-Fi extender socket than from the router (Virgin Media Hitron) which is twelve feet further away, on the other side of the room with the Wi-Fi extender socket in it. I get 8MBps from the extender socket, and 15MBps from the router - so the extender socket is much slower than the router! Pointless!

So the problem with most 'extender' products is that they are typically weaker than a good access point. So your results don't surprise me as both units are dealing with the same walls which are the real culprit.

However, one thing you may be able to do with what you currently have is to move the extender into the study and use it as a wired access point and see if that improves the tablet upstairs. If so, then your idea of getting another router to repurpose as an access point should work pretty well.

 

[James Thomas Jones]

Hi SamirD, the floors are just standard wooden joists and wooden floorboards, that's the norm in the U.K. (where I'm from), so I'm hoping a router in the study will be enough, the bedroom is literally above the study so it's about ten feet from where the second router would be, if I had it on the floor, or I could easily put it on top of a bookcase in the study and it would only be four feet away from the upstairs bedroom tablet.
Re the Powerline adaptors, I had two different sets - I think they were both AV300, but they were slower than WiFi in the study. I plugged one into one double wall socket in the sitting room, two feet from the Virgin Media Hitron router, and the other into a double wall socket in the study, making sure they were directly plugged into the wall sockets, not using an extension lead, as I know they can cause electrical noise.
When they didn't work, I bought some flat ethernet cable and ran that under the carpet from the sitting room to the study, about twenty feet, and that works great for my PC, but my laptop and tablet use WiFi (my tablet is a Linx 7 so has to use WiFi, no other easy option). So would an AV2000 powerline adaptor be likely to be better than my AV300 models?

 

[SamirD]

Thank you for the additional information. I have relatives in the UK and love the country.

With wooden joists you have a solid chance of getting a second router to work as an access point.

But since the powerline adapters you used were ancient and don't surprise me on the performance or that they worked at all. Powerline technology seems to move an order of magnitude each new standard so the powerline av500 units I have work almost 10x better than the av300 you have and a new set of av2000 should give you full wired speed almost anywhere.

So now that we have a lot of potential solutions, here's what I would do. First, I would get a set of av2000 powerlines and see if they can get you a wired connection upstairs. If so, then you can use the existing wifi extender as an access point if it has an ethernet port on it. Otherwise, you can get a router for the upstairs for use as an access point.

If the av2000 can't span all the way upstairs, then I would see if it can from the wired connection in your study since that literally would be just one floor. If this works, then you can get a switch for the study and then a router to use as an access point upstairs (or the extender). A lot of the av2000 powerlines, especially the EU models also have a built-in switch so a switch may not even be necessary.

If the av2000 powerline can't reach upstairs at all, then they won't be of much use, and then the best solution will be your original thought of getting a router and putting it in the study so that upstairs you should be able to get signal.

Hopefully this doesn't give you too many options, and helps you find the best solution. Feel free to ask questions and definitely let me know what works as I'm curious myself!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Perhaps their houses don't have internal brick walls like mine does!

Yeah, Brick/Concrete/Metal walls are really tough to get through with wifi. Especially if you have to go through multiple walls.

One idea, is to get an advanced "Mesh Network" router setup, and put one in EACH room, connected wirelessly to the adjacent rooms, and maybe that will give you enough "push" to punch a signal through to where you need it. OTOH, every repeater you go through, unless it has separate "backhaul" radios, will effectively cut your repeated bandwidth in HALF. For every hop.

Honestly though, as @SamirD pointed out, this may be a poor job for wireless, and powerline / MOCA may be a better solution. OR, drilling holes and running ethernet or fiber between walls.

 

[James Thomas Jones]

Thank you both so much for taking the time to reply in such detail, I think I will try some AV2000 powerlines then, I didn't know that the technology had advanced so well, it sounds like the easiest option for me.

 

[SamirD]

You're welcome! Let us know how it goes!