I was visiting a friend recently who got problems with the WIFI connection in his really tiny
flat.
The router is not far away from the device its connected to.
Weak signal, really.
The reason “concrete” walls.
Using repeaters was a solution.
In my house old red bricks have been used.
Signal perfect up to 1 and 2 floor.
(Router located at the ground floor)
There are so many solutions to increase the signal.
I think this is a theme we can talk about.
Ethernet cables.
Powerline.
Make sure you’re using 2.4GHz when in dense barriers rather than 5Ghz.
Cables?
I would like to talk about WIFI. 
You can use an ethernet or Powerline to a WiFi access point.
The issue with repeaters is they take a signal which is already degraded by the inverse square drop with distance and then repeat it.
If the problem is a thick wall then only using WiFi still suffers through the wall, all that a repeater does is reduce the inverse square degradation. If however you put a Powerline adapter at the router, and then the other side of the wall you put a Powerline+WiFi access point then you solve both the wall problem and you get a higher WiFi bandwidth.
I mentioned Powerline as many don’t know it exists.
And the names of the router get far out
That’s one of my pet peeves, if everyone who can, uses 5Ghz then it improves WiFi congestion for everyone as it naturally doesn’t penetrate walls as much as 2.4Ghz, so you’d be causing less of an issue for your neighbours and they for you. 2.4Ghz only has 3 non overlapping bands so it only takes 4 2.4Ghz routers near each other to cause degraded performance. If you use a WiFi repeater then you’re using 2 of the 3 non overlapping bands yourself.
There is little you can do at the device to force 5Ghz preference, but you can usually make a different SSID for 5ghz and only connect that at the device, and preserve 2.4ghz for legacy devices.
5ghz is worse for walls, it needs Powerline or Ethernet, to a 5ghz access point.
Because each device takes a channel the decision tree is:
This is exactly why I have a guest network as well as my main network, because I can set it to 5ghz specifically for devices that are within range of it on my main floor, e.g. my fridge, range, t.v., nest, nest protects, and cameras. I use my main to go on my devices like laptops, ipad, etc as they are located all over the house and being that we have plaster walls, this allows them to connect seamlessly without the need for an additional mesh or repeater.
Being what it is, I had to make sure that I was able to change my SSID to something that could be recognized by said devices, and thankfully I was able to use this:
Main network
Guest network
Now I got you.
Yes this can be done.
Setting another access point via cable,
Of course 5ghz should be used if possible, to avoid overlaps with other
routers using 2,4ghz .
Another thing can be done.
Checking the routers in the neighbourhood and select a channel which is not used by those, (eg 13)
Does this really help?
… ideally another Wifi Access Point (same SSID, same password but not the same channel) on end of a sufficiently long Ethernet cable, or if not practical then Powerline + Wifi. Then the device can move around and seamlessly switch to strongest signal.
Get Cat5e even if not GigE, it’s better quality, and can go up to 100ft.
If you have to use the Powerline method, you can buy integrated Powerline+Wifi for neatness but the cheapest is use an existing older router and configure it to Access Point non-router mode, on end of either long Ethernet from router or short Ethernet from Powerline.
Realistically there arent a lot of great ways to do this other than spamming repeaters everywhere
Powerline ‘might’ work but thats really really dependent on your wiring. Plus its very succeptable to noise on the line. Aka if you turn on a high amp device on the same circuit the bandwdith available tanks.
Wired is the best way to connect your mesh network together but again, that may not be possible depending.
If you have coax avaialble AND you’re NOT splitting the coax, doing IP over coax ‘might’ work. Its not fast but its going to be more stable
There’s not a lot you can do to get through concrete walls
I have been using Powerline for 14 years.
You normally have a “ring” for kitchen sockets and a “ring” for bedrooms, connect the Powerline pair to the same non-kitchen ring. The newest models are more reliable than Wifi.
You can focus the radio signal to point to where is it needed.
Thanks for posting this! I’ve been thinking about using my house’s existing, unused coax cable for Ethernet, but didn’t know about these low cost adapters!
Oh, I have such an unused coax system in my house (old TV)
and sockets in quite every room.
That’s an idea.
Ideally you sit down with neighbours and agree a win-win method. Most routers are on auto-channel moving away from another router on overlapping channel, so if you were to look one minute it might be on, say, channel 13, if you set to channel 6, it could then put itself on 6 to react to some (further from you, nearer to them) router. So if you did decide to fix a static channel you’d want your nearest neighbours to do the same on the non-overlapping channel. You want one to be 1, another on 6, another on 11.
If all those who could use 5Ghz did, or all those who can use Ethernet did, then it helps share the spectrum. 5Ghz is not just avoid selfishly moving to less congestion, it also altruistically reduces your impact on others as 5Ghz does not penetrate neighbour’s property as well as 2.4Ghz.
Below higher numbers = bigger loss = worse.
In the top-of-thread problem described, 5Ghz is not the answer by itself as it is worse through concrete (higher = worse in chart below)
But if you did go a wired+wireless, so Ethernet / Powerline / Coax + Wifi , then WANT to 5Ghz so that added radio used in the other room does not bleed out so much so it helps neighbours. So wired to get around concrete and 5Ghz within a room.
This will work here.
(separate houses)
(The 13 its me)
But in a an apartment block?
But let me say first!
Thank you.
I learned a lot today! 
The 5 and the 9 neighbours are worsening things for everyone else. The 9 is worsening for you. This charts show the overlapping, you need separation of 5 channels, so 1, 6, 11
From your scan, you being on 13 is overlapping 9 which is a stronger signal so you’d be better on 1. But the people who manually picked 5 is going to still give you some degradation than if they had picked 6.
Planning, you sit with neighbours and make a physical map and agree minimum overlapping based on physical location. e.g.
If you cannot plan this with your neighbours, then simply move to 5Ghz, along with using cable whereever you can to reduce your congestion with yourself and your neighbours, who will themselves be going to 5Ghz probably eventually.
You can win-win with neighbours, because if you are close to each other, you can share Internet costs and lower individual costs. So there’s money savings to be made in the situations of high congestion. If you put 5Ghz access points in each apartment with Ethernet between them, you’d want the one in the middle of 3 apartments to have the Internet and you share the bill. The cost savings pay for the hardware.
Chances are you each right now is paying the Internet company for faster Internet than your Wifi can deliver.
Yes I will ask my neighbors (Michael and Arnim) both are engineers,
who understand it.
Their houses are about 10m away left and right side of mine.
In front there is the street only and back the garden.
The conference of Yalta!
5ghz : I would have problems with my old hardware.
The legacy hardware which cannot move to 5Ghz will be improved by not sharing the spectrum with those devices you did move to 5Ghz. My advice is change router defaults of 5Ghz + 2.4Ghz from identical SSID as then you cannot force a 5Ghz capable device from using 5Ghz. Go into router and rename the 5Ghz (e.g. add “-5G”) and then set all 5Ghz capable devices to only know the password of the -5G SSID. If all people do that then the 2.4Ghz spectrum will improve with less congestion.
Legacy devices also more commonly have Ethernet, so some Ethernet / Powerline helps there too.
So if you can get along with an trust each other then you will pay for the best Internet, and you’d have the 5Ghz / 2.4Ghz router, you’d then have a Long Ethernet from your router to Michael and another long Ethernet to Arnim. They’d then plug in 5Ghz / 2.4Ghz Access Points (non-routing) , then you’d statically fix your 5Ghz 2.4Ghz to be non-overlapping. You’d set the same 5Ghz SSID+Password and a (different password, different SSID) 2.4Ghz SSID+Password. You’d then type in 5Ghz password to all devices which can, and 2.4Ghz for non-5Ghz legacy.
You’d then have a designed lower cost faster Internet.
You can get paid for your Internet bill in beer?
Very informative thread
Great conversation guys.
I know a little about channel changing but this has helped a lot.
I added a pair of wi-fi access points to my router last year and switched the WiFi off on the router.
The access points made a huge difference to speed stability and coverage, and even better I was able to hardwire them to the router.
If all devices are within range of both access points it will push 5ghz compatible devices over one access point leaving the other to deal with 2.4ghz devices - such as smart switches etc.
They also look smart which kept Debs happy! 
