Wireless range issue - does broadband speed matter?

ck_303

Howdy

Hoping somebody here can be of assistance.

I have a converted garage at the end of my garden - it has a hifi setup which I want to control with my iPhone using wifi.

The problem is that my wifi barely reaches the garage - signal strength varies between medium and none at all.

I think the problem is that the back of my house is a big tinted glass sliding door, which I read plays havoc with wifi.

I'm using a Belklin N1 Vision router which is supposed to have decent range.

Have tried setting up wireless repeaters but couldn't get the f**king things to work.

I am signed up to UPC 10mb broadband and was wondering whether I might get a better signal strength in the garage if I signed up for the 30mb product.

Or does it work like that?

Any help much appreciated.

watty

Your broadband has no effect on the WiFi range.

If distance is less than 100m run Shielded Cat5e. It will do 100Mbps duplex. That is equivalent to over 300Mbps of WiFi.

If you need WiFi in the Garage, then add an airpoint, or a ethernet router/wifi with Router and DHCP turned off on the Cat5e. At house the Cat5e STP plugs into your existing "Belklin N1 Vision router".

Range is limited by the weaker of either end of a Radio Link. Phones have poor WiFi range, about 1/2 of dedicated DECT cordless phone, no matter how good the WiFi router is.

ck_303

Thanks a lot for the help.

Unfortunately wired connection isn't possible due to the funny layout of my house and my wife's aversion to cables.

Anyway, thanks for saving me an unneccessary broadband upgrade.

One thing I don't understand is why my wifi range is reduced if somebody else is connected to my wifi at the same time.

Before I read your post I thought of broadband speed as being analagous to water pressure but clearly this isn't the case.

watty

The WiFi has three modes (simplified explanation):
1) Very GOOD signal = OFDM (54Mbps* raw, about 18Mbps max download)
2) Poorer signal CDMA/ Spread-spectrum (11Mbps raw, about 3Mbps max download)
3) Poorest signal. Single narrow modulated carrier (About 1Mbps raw, about 0.25Mbps max download)

With CDMA any additional connection makes the link noiser. The more noise the less range. 3G/HSPDA/iHSPA, EVDO, FOMA and CDMA1 all use CDMA, and thus the mobile mast cell size shrinks as users connect (phone calls or data). It's called Cell Breathing.

So quite a normal situation.

(*802.11g is max 54Mbps Raw, Turbo G is 125Mbps or 108Mbps max depending on version and 802.11n is 250Mbps max, but at the higher speeds you have less range, less immunity to noise and at "5Mbps" speed distance the up to 250Mbps 802.11n is also 5Mbps.

WiFi is quite separate to Broadband,even Wireless Broadband or Mobile Internet. The performance is only as good as the poorer end and none of the newer systems give any significant "raw" increase in range, only higher speed at shorter distances, for larger range you need a dish at both ends point at each other.)

jor el

As an alternate to wireless and running a cable through the house, you should consider Home Plugs, or Ethernet over Power. This will extend your LAN using two plug in modules. If you have power in the shed, then this might well work.

watty

Or not, and it will create serious radio interference, esp. if the cable to garage is overhead and not buried.

HomePlug and similar are radio transmitters working from LW to top of SW, or in some cases up to Band II VHF FM. They are using a regulatory loophole to be on the market at all.