Here are the 5 simple steps needed to install wifi throughout an apartment built with impermeable walls and only one working ADSL location point and still have an ethernet line to your desktop computer:
Step 1: buy a router of higher quality than came with original install
Step 2: buy a wifi extender of high quality
Step 3: buy a 30 m ethernet cable
Step 4: buy a 30+ m telephone cable
Step 5: Spend hours installing 56 command strip cord holders to anchor the duo of cables along a baseboard, upwards adjacent to a door frame, up to the ceiling from there, down the hallway along the edge of the ceiling, back down to the floor adjacent to a door frame, around/under the door frame, back up to the ceiling adjacent to a door frame, across the top of an alcove opening (closet), back down the other side and lastly along the top of the baseboard from one side of the room to the other.
Is your head spinning yet? Keep in mind we can't use any type of anchor that would put holes in the walls or frame trim so this was the only option. I hope they hold on tight. We actually used between 25 and 27 m of the ethernet cable. The phone
line was longer so we had more leftover which was neatly tied up.
We have the same signal level throughout most of the apartment now which surprised me. The phone technician seemed to be insistent that the signal would drop with a wifi extender but it hasn't. Perhaps due to the quality of the extender we purchased. The signal in this building is definitely line of sight. I haven't tried every square cm of the place yet, but these walls are solidly built.
Aren't all radio signals line of sight? ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe easy answer is no I guess not.Part of the story is the frequency itself of course.
ReplyDeleteI do know that our single router at our last several houses could broadcast a signal that went through all the walls on the second floor and through the floor downstairs to all of the rooms on the first floor. The signals went right through wood/drywall construction. If you had a wall with more metal in it or more solid somehow, you'd lose signal. So not strictly line of sight for sure. Some materials block the signal, some don't. Line of sight is the strongest signal.