Create the perfect wireless home network
EVERYBODY HAS WI FI, but not everybody has a network that’s up to snu . Perhaps there are holes in the network, black spots where the signal is spotty. Perhaps it struggles to stream HD video, especially when there are multiple devices using it at once. Perhaps the signal drops out whenever the neighbour uses their microwave. Whatever the problem, we’re here to solve it.
We’ll look at building a home network in two ways: for speed and for coverage. ose things aren’t mutually exclusive — indeed, better coverage also means better speed as you get a stronger signal — but if you’re having the problem with one or the other you can start there.
BUILDING FOR SPEED
If you’re getting three or four bars on your Wi-Fi signal strength meter, but it still can’t deliver Net ix or 1080p YouTube reliably, then it’s probably time to start looking at new hardware.
For best speeds you absolutely need an 802.11ac router, and nearly all such routers are given an ‘ACxxxx’ designation, indicating the total theoretical bandwidth they support. For example, an AC2400 router supports a total bandwidth of 2,333Mbps (they rounded up, of course).
Currently, the state of the art in consumer Wi-Fi routers is AC5300/AC5400 Wave 2, which are typically monstrously large beasts sporting eight antennas. e ‘Wave 2’ part of the equation indicates support for a technology called MU-MIMO, a technique that reduces contention between devices. Normally, when two devices are accessing a Wi-Fi access point at the same time, they are competing for bandwidth. With MU-MIMO, they each get an independent stream, meaning that, in environments where you have lots of devices working at once, you’ll get better individual performance. MU-MIMO is great, and de nitely worth having for the future, but it won’t give you an immediate impact because almost no mobiles or PCs or other wireless devices support it just yet. e AC rating itself is problematic, since it doesn’t really tell you how that number is achieved. In AC5300/AC5400 routers, for example, they hit the lo y number by creating three independent wireless networks: two 802.11ac networks (which are backwards compatible with 802.11n) and an 802.11n network. A given device can only connect to one of those networks, however, and the maximum speed achievable is 2,166Mbps (or 1,733Mbps; see our sidebar on QAM on page 58). ese routers are only useful in environments where there are a huge number of devices using them at once.
So what’s your optimum AC rating? It really depends on what you’re using the network for and how many people are using it at once. Very few people need anything close to an AC5300 router, and for most home
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users, an AC2400/3100/3150 is more than good enough. at should support four or ve HD Net ix streams simultaneously. Even an AC1900 router is good for most homes. In fact, if you only have one or two people in your home, an AC1900 router is ideal. Wireless connections can only go as fast as the client device, and very few mobiles and PCs support anything higher than 867Mbps. Really fast routers exist for environments where lots of devices are competing for airtime.
If you later nd that your Wi-Fi network is struggling, you can always add an additional wireless access point or optimise your coverage to get better reception and,
therefore, better speeds for your client devices. We’ll talk about that more later.
BUILDING FOR COVERAGE
Sometimes, you don’t need to be able to stream Net ix in 4K. Sometimes, you just want to access the internet, but can’t because of poor reception. If you’re having coverage problems, then there are de nitely some remedial steps you can take.
Of course, getting a stronger signal also means better performance. Wi-Fi is not an on/o thing. e weaker the signal, the slower it gets, as it has to transmit more data to overcome RF noise and it has to trade speed for signal robustness.
ROUTER POSITIONING
e place to start is router positioning. It’s the thing most likely to get you results and it also happens to have no cost involved (other than arguments about ruining the decor). e main things you should know are:
Nearly all consumer Wi-Fi routers use omnidirectional antennas. ey’re not truly omnidirectional (which we’ll get to in a second), but there’s equal coverage in all directions on the horizontal plane. e upshot of that is that the router should be placed as close to the centre of your home as you can make it. Putting it in a corner is the worst solution, since you’re wasting an awful lot of transmission power when you do that. Yes, that means you might have to run some extra phone and network cabling.
Radio signals will pass through most objects, but will pass through some better than others. Certain types of walls and barriers will substantially reduce signal strength: concrete and brick walls (such as load-bearing and external walls), tiles and walls with lead paint or metal inside are good examples. ere are also some complete showstoppers that will likely create a ‘shadow’ in your Wi-Fi coverage: pools and sh tanks, certain mirrors, walls with chicken wire or similar materials inside and some metal household appliances.
e key is to gure out what is between the router and the device that wants to access it and to try to work around it by moving the router or, if needs be, adding a new access point. Certainly, you should not be burying your router in cupboards or behind bookshelves; Wi-Fi works best when there is as little as possible between the router/access point and the device that wants to talk to it.
As anybody who has tried to set up Wi-Fi in a multistorey house probably knows, most router antennas are aligned for best reception on the horizontal plane. at means they work best when the router is on the same oor as the user. Consequently, it’s not a good idea to put the router in a basement, in the roof/attic or under the house. If you have a
multistorey house, you can sometimes get a little better reception by ‘splitting the di erence’ and, say, putting the router on a high shelf on the lower oor, but that can sometimes create as many problems as it solves.
If you want to check what e ect moving the router has, then you can try one of our favourite mobile apps: WiFi Analyzer for Android, available on Google Play. WiFi Analyzer will give you a signal power reading for all the Wi-Fi networks that your mobile can pick up, and by carrying your mobile around the house, you can get a picture of what kind of coverage you get where.
WiFi Analyzer will report signal power in dBm relative to source power, so the number is a negative. e more negative the number, the worse the signal is. To give you an indication of what the results mean: * -60dBm or better is a good signal. A very good signal will be around -40dBm. * At around -70dBm, the signal is okay, generally between two and three bars. * At -80dBm, performance starts to dip a lot, and you might struggle with HD video. * At -90dBm and worse, you’ll drop to one bar and will likely start experiencing dropouts.
EXTENDING YOUR COVERAGE
So moving your router is not getting the job done, and you nd yourself just creating new black spots when you try to x the old ones. at’s when you have to look at extending your network.
Now, we’re going to come out and say it: range extenders and Wi-Fi repeaters are kind of rubbish, at least for people wanting to build a high performance network. ey reduce bandwidth and add latency, both of which are not ideal. e power point models also tend to have very weak antennas. ey have their place: if you don’t care at all about speed and just want to be able to Facebook from your corner bedroom, they o er a simple solution. But they’re not the ultimate answer. (We should note here, however, that a lot of range extenders have multiple modes and can also function as routers and stand-alone access points, and in that capacity, they can be excellent tools for extending your network).
e optimum solution is simply to set up another Wi-Fi router or access point, positioned to capture the users that the main router misses. Technically, all you need is a wireless access point, not a full Wi-Fi router, but in the realm of consumer products, nearly all access points are actually routers as well, and nearly all routers can be run as access points. As mentioned, a lot of range extenders also o er an ‘access point mode’
that you can use. For the setup, you should adhere to the following rules:
Position the second router/access point wherever it will deliver best coverage to those devices that have reception issues.
Connect it back to the primary router (the one with the connection to the internet) with an Ethernet cable, LAN port to LAN port. If running an Ethernet cable through/ under your house is not an option, HomePlug powerline networking products provide an excellent way to connect the secondary router/access point to the primary.
Con gure the new access point to use the same security (WPA2), SSID/ network name and password as the original. at way, you don’t need to con gure your devices to access the new wireless network. ey will just connect to the one with the strongest signal.
Lastly, and this is important, set the new router up to use a di erent wireless channel than the original. Now, this may be something that you never bothered with before, so it may take a moment to gure out. You’ll have to log into your original router’s admin page and nd the wireless settings, and then set the channel manually.
WiFi Analyzer can actually recommend which channel to use — ideally you want to be using channels that your neighbours are not.
en, on your new router/access point, nd the channel settings and set it to something di erent from the original.
is setup is not perfect. For a start, if you move around the house, devices will tend to stick to the router they’re currently connected to rather than switch to the other, even if the signal is weak. Seamless roaming is, unfortunately, a feature only really found in enterprise and commercial access points, the kind you nd in airports, shopping centres and hotels. On Android, you can kind of fake it using an app called WiFi Roaming Fix, which will force your Android device to switch between routers once a signal strength threshold is passed.
Yet as a consumer, this is about as good as it gets. e two routers provide better coverage, and, as an added bonus, provide greater total bandwidth as devices connected to one router don’t compete with devices connected to the other for airtime.
NOW WE’RE GOING TO COME OUT AND SAY IT: RANGE EXTENDERS AND WI-FI REPEATERS ARE KIND OF RUBBISH, AT LEAST FOR PEOPLE WANTING TO BUILD A HIGH-PERFORMANCE NETWORK.