Wifi not reaching upstairs...

[beanwalls]

Hi All,

I'm new to Vodafone broadband and am finding the wifi signal on the router to not be great... I live in a two bed terraced house and am only getting a 'poor' signal upstairs. It doesn't help that the master socket placement means the router has to be in a corner at the front of the house, so not exactly a central location...

Can anyone advise on how best to improve matters? A new router perhaps? Extenders - although there aren't any sockets between where it is and the bedrooms I want it to better reach upstairs, so I'm not sure that will work.

Thoughts welcome!

[Cynric]

@beanwalls Some ideas:

- scan the WiFi channels to check that a close neighbour and you are not on the same channel

- put an extender in the hallway or similar as a half-way point

- get a PowerLine WiFi device with mains pass-through (signal goes over mains wires and the device will broadcast WiFi from there) 

- get another router (I am presuming that you are on the THG3000)

- use the search facility of this forum to see what else others may have already done

[beanwalls]

Thanks for this, I'll check out those options. Quick follow up questions first --

- I've scanned the wifi, and would love to switch channels but couldn't figure out how to do it. Then found several threads on here saying that Vodfone removed that as an option, even in expert mode.

- Regarding the extender option. As I said, there are no sockets nearer to the upstairs from where the router is, only ones in living room at front of house and then in dining room and kitchen, none of which would be much help - I'd need one at the bottom of the stairs - or even top of stairs, but there aren't sockets there.

- A powerline wifi device sounds like an option though. I didn't know they existed. I've had powerline ethernet devices before, and that was a potential option - but a wifi version sounds better.

- Get another router - yes, a good potential option -- but which one would do the job and not cost a fortune and look like a terrifying alien robot?

[Jayach]

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@beanwalls wrote:

Regarding the extender option. As I said, there are no sockets nearer to the upstairs from where the router is,

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When you say sockets, are you referring to phone sockets or power sockets? Extenders will require a power socket, but not a phone socket.

[beanwalls]

I was referring to power sockets, but there are no phone sockets either. Just the one phone socket in the house and like I said, no power sockets inbetween where the router is and the bedrooms upstairs.  

[Cynric]

@beanwalls For example "TL-WPA8631P KIT" is a simple WiFi over the mains with the bonus of not losing the electric socket.

I'm a happy power line user. I get about 250Mbps from my upstairs study. This is fine for me as I'm on FTTC and my max speed is 65Mbps. My house walls soak-up WiFi like you wouldn't believe.

There are other people on here who have not had a good experience. It depends on the quality of the house wiring and if you have something connecting to the mains that causes interference.

[CrimsonLiar]

Everybody's mileage on powerline adapters is different.  The problem can be that they rely on the quality of your wiring and if they have to go from one circuit to another through the fusebox/consumer unit, etc.  Like @Cynric I've used them and the TP-Link WPA-7510 (originally used in a large apartment/flat with very thick solid concrete walls on a single ring-main) will actually connect from the downstairs circuit here to the upstairs circuit at around 650Mbps.  That's a really high figure for a 1Mbps device, but we're a new build and caught a couple of suspect sockets and switches early on (and missed a badly fitted switch for the bathroom until it was replaced with a smart switch).

If you do try powerline, try to keep the runs as short as possible, and don't use too many of the powerline plugs.

*I can't remember if I actually bought the WPA-7510 or if it was gifted from work, but I've also set up D-Link powerline devices too - pretty much of a muchness.

[HappyNomad]

@beanwalls wrote:

I was referring to power sockets, but there are no phone sockets either. Just the one phone socket in the house and like I said, no power sockets inbetween where the router is and the bedrooms upstairs.  

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[long post alert]

I gave up with the Vodafone hub - To set the scene, it was in an office in the extension with a thick formerly external wall between it and the rest of the fairly long rectangular house.  Quite a distance from the office end to the opposite end although less so front to back.

The end of the house furthest from the office was a wifi black hole so after having fairly unsuccessfully trying an extender in the middle I changed my Vodafone hub to a stand-alone modem, a traditionally shaped mesh router and three mesh nodes.

• Router in the office with a through the wall wired connection into the main house/living room.  The router has four Gigabit LAN ports with a Raspberry Pi zero running Pihole,, the through the wall node connection for Node 1, an eight port switch and one spare for anything I may wish to connect short term like the infrequently used Linux laptop.  The seven available ports on the switch are fully populated with two IoT hubs, a couple of printers, two laptops, and another through the wall connection to a Freesat box. 
• Node 1 - connected to the router through the wall.  The primary TV is wire connected to the second Enet port on this node.
• Node 2 - in an upstairs bedroom positioned pretty much directly above node 1 downstairs..  Bedroom TV is wire connected to this node.
• Node 3 - in a bedroom at the diagonal opposite end of the house.  Bedroom TV is wire connected to this node.
• Each room has a wifi connected alexa device and there are sundry other devices, phones, tablets and Kindle etc, seamlessly connecting in various rooms as they move around the house and gardens.  Everything performs perfectly including streaming netflix etc in all rooms with a TV..
  
  Not the cheapest solution by any means but it has been perfectly reliable with almost zero user intervention since installation and the only plug sockets needed are in the rooms with a node.  Very happy with it and something like three years in I think it has paid me back what it cost.
  
   I initially tried adding the three mesh nodes in bridge mode to the Vodafone hub but I really wasn't happy with the result. The Vodafone hub remained the weakest link.

[beanwalls]

I’d only need one powerline extension as it’s not a big house at all. 

So that would mean, just one attached to the router directly and a second upstairs plugged into a socket in a bedroom. Right? 

I see a few different t-link versions, with various price tags. Any advice on the best to try? Or the ones to avoid? I assume the lower spec ones should be avoided? 

[beanwalls]

Thanks - good to know. The TP-Link ones seem to be the go to so I’ll try those and see.