Nothing to do with your electric wiring, just that wifi has limited range and doesn't travel well through masonry. Our old house has massive internal stone walls and it is only by careful positioning of the router that we can get coverage in several rooms. We have a similar problem with mobile phone reception and only get a signal when the phone is close to the one window in the house that doesn't have double glazing. If you have an Android tablet or smartphone. you can download a wifi signal meter app and this will enable you to visualize the signal coverage. As a starting point, you should think about locating the router as high up in the building as possible.
That seems a robust solution. The transmission rates are higher than wi-fi and stable. Just depends how far the distance is. Is there a max length for an Ethernet cable?
I had exactly the same problem in France using power line adaptors such as HomePlug as there are separate consumer units on each of our 4 storeys. However with wifi extenders such as the Belkin N300 (Amazon £20 in the UK) it works perfectly.
Hi
You must have continuous wiring. If you only have one meter then all supply comes through the meter and you will have two sets of tails, one to each tableau. But they will be joined at meter. If you already have a wireless extender have you confirmed it works?
Yes, for within a single circuit and the range is not that good. Plus they cost twice as much as the Netgear and similar wireless extenders. When we asked in the local Orange shop because of our range problems in this house, the room downstairs did not work, that is what they recommended (of course). So €99 plus a long ethernet cable, say 50m or longer, so another €20 or €30 and then between houses ideally it need housing, even if going from pole to pole as an aerial suspension and kept well away from mains supplies since main routes often carry strong magnetic fields. €40 or €50 for a decent simply wifi extender saves all that bother. But yes the CPL modules would otherwise resolve it.
Brian, you can get CPL modules that then act as WiFi transmitters at the remote end. ( http://boutique.orange.fr/ESHOP_mx_orange/?tp=F&ref=63968&IDCible=1&type=11&donnee_appel=ORESH&id=199691454649292 )
I had assumed the OP couldn't see the existing WiFi signal in the 2nd house so was looking for a way to extend coverage into the 2nd house. Running an ethernet cable and then setting up an AP should solve that
But then they are not wifi...
I am wondering what separate electricity feeds and wifi have to do with each other?
Nothing at all Brian unless you are trying to use those network extenders that use the wiring within a property to work their magic.
I am getting rather lost here. I am wondering what separate electricity feeds and wifi have to do with each other? With my Netgear wireless extender I can take my laptop or tablet to my neighbour's place, which I have done a couple of times each, and use my hardware. He still had an old style modem until quite recently but when he got a Livebox last year I thought I would have to log on to his wifi, but my own was fine, no conflicts or anything else. His place is something between 150m and 200m from us and then there are four stone walls for the wifi to go through. It works nonetheless. He naturally has an entirely separate power feed, in fact in front of his place is the pylon with the splitter to feed a line going up another route and the other in our direction. So, looking at the original point again I am rather confused. Surely the power supply is of no consequence here?
if the second house is on a different phase of the electricity supply (e.g as said, on a separate board), then the powerline won't work between the two houses.
As someone else has mentioned, you can extend LAN access coverage over electrical line feeds using Power Line Carrier (PLC) devices for which there is quite an extensive range of domestic products available, even in the local large supermarkets (Carrefour, Auchan, etc) or online (Amazon has a glut of them).
The devices plug into the power supply sockets in your home, one of which is generally connected to the wifi router (e.g. Livebox) via a Cat5/6 LAN cable, at least to set it up initially (automatic synching generally occurs via a button on the device so that it can take a network address). At another place in the house or on an electical circuit that goes through the same main circuit breaker, you plug in another PLC device that synchs with the first. This second device can contain a wifi repeater, which will give the second area wifi coverage that the initial wifi router might not be able to reach. I use such a system as a back up in my house to provide wifi access to my office which is on another electrical circuit, in case my professional internet goes down, or vice-versa (which has happened on occasion). This assumes that the electical circuits are not on separate EDF circuit breakers/meters, although it has been reported that even such allegedly electrically isolated circuits can be made to talk to each other if two neighbouring houses both have the same PLC devices (note that I haven't tried this, I merely saw it reported).
Notwithstanding the odd synch problems now and then, it is a system that works well. Beware though - as the PLC devices use your power lines, any interference caused by misbehaving appliances, or outside electromagnetic interference on the lines, can play havoc with the reliability of these systems. A classic example, placing a PLC device next to your microwave for example, or in some circumstances, even behind a TV, unless your power lines are ultra-shielded against such interference, which simply isn't the case for most people.
Also note that power line data transport is fairly open to snooping, which is why the majority of current PLC devices provide encryption of the data that transits between devices - how good this encryption actually is varies according to the various manufacturers, and in most cases not immediately obvious to the casual domestic user.
Uhm, I don't understand what the link is between the continuous electrical wiring and the wifi signal ? The wifi signal is just that, a device broadcasting wireless radio frequency signals at 2.4Ghz UHF or 5Ghz SHF radio waves, that is independent of the electrical power supply into which it is plugged.
The radio waves will pass through walls of a certain thickness and constitution, but the more obstacles and greater distance there are, the less likely that the signal will be consistent enough to be picked up by a wifi detecting client device, such as a smartphone, tablet, pc equipped with wifi receiver, etc. However, this is independent of the electrical power supply into which the emitter is plugged in.
Perhaps I have misunderstood the question ?
Amazon has one on offer for about 30% off today, it is Netgear and couple of models newer than our one, really does work.
We use wireless extenders (they happen to be from Netgear) and get coverage on all our buildings as well as outside
Hi there,
I had the same issue and bought this...
http://www.banggood.com/Xiaomi-Router-Mini-AC-Intelligent-Wifi-Dual...
I am using in conjunction with my Livebox
not too bad to set up if you view You Tube info and now I have coverage over 256sqm upstairs and down.....
How about running an ethernet cable from your router into the 2nd house and connecting a WiFi access point ?