Wifi or other options for a large amount of space

[swbsam]

I currently live in a large apartment (1800 sq. feet) and already have wi-fi issues and assume they'll get worse once (if - fingers crossed!) I move to a larger duplex. I'm a big windows media center junky (with xboxes as extenders), so steady bandwidth is important

What options do I have for an all-house network? Are there any routers out there that can handle multi-floor (up to 3 including basement) environments or is there any other option out there? I'd consider powerline networking as well. Of course, I can run a lot of cat5 but I'm a messy cabler and my wife would stab me if I strung up 1000 ft.

 

[1ceHacka]

I am not sure that I fully understand your situation, but I will take a stab at a few issues.

1.) Apartments are notorius for a lot of wireless signals. My best advice (and others will agree I am sure) is to change your wireless to a different channel. Most people use the defualt channels that the routers come with, and therefore interference can be a problem.

2.) If you want to cover a multifloor building/house, you will probably need an AP type environment. I am not 100% on the architecture of this setup, but using several routers acting as AP's may solve your coverage issues.

 

[swbsam]

Originally posted by: 1ceHacka
I am not sure that I fully understand your situation, but I will take a stab at a few issues.

1.) Apartments are notorius for a lot of wireless signals. My best advice (and others will agree I am sure) is to change your wireless to a different channel. Most people use the defualt channels that the routers come with, and therefore interference can be a problem.

2.) If you want to cover a multifloor building/house, you will probably need an AP type environment. I am not 100% on the architecture of this setup, but using several routers acting as AP's may solve your coverage issues.

Sorry for being vague - I didn't have coffee yet

1. I currently live in a large apartment, with a computer in nearly every room. Maintaining a signal strong enough to support high def streaming (on a 802.11n network) has been difficult

2. I'm moving (hopefully) to a multifloor house and, if it's a minor issue now (choppy video), I assume that it'll get much worse in a multifloor environment. I'm trying to plan ahead so that, if I need to do something as drastic as wiring the whole building for ethernet, I can factor it into my budget

I'll def. change the channel of my router tonight, to see if that helps

 

[doan]

If you really want flawless video, pull wires. A little extra work up front, but then everything works all the time.

A lot of newer homes use cat 5 for the phone wire. My house is 6 years old but all the phone lines are Cat5e and all are direct runs - This made it easy to convert the phone jacks to network jacks.

 

[JackMDS]

Given your goals you probably are wasting your time looking for Wireless solution.

5 years from now? May be there would be a Wireless solution.

Right Now go to how not to be a sloppy Cabler school and start digging in the walls.:thumbsup: