N vs G Range with G devices
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Posted by Bill on June 17, 2008, 6:33 am
Please log in for more thread options I'm currently using an 802.11g wireless access point. The devices in my house that connect to it are all 802.11g. I am having some signal issues in parts of the house. I know I won't get faster speeds, but is there any advantage to using an 802.11n device as the access point in terms of range, if all the devices are 802.11g? Thanks again | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by seaweedsl on June 18, 2008, 11:05 am
Please log in for more thread options No, I don't think an N router operating in G mode will offer any advantage. In fact, may reduce your current options if it doesn't have removable antennas. Instead, why don't you go ahead and give us a description of your router model and the various devices that connect to it. Describe your house layout and where the problems are. There is almost certainly a good solution using G, perhaps with a higher gain antenna (or reflector) perhaps adding a second AP connected by cable or powerline networking to your existing router. Steve | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Bill on June 18, 2008, 8:25 pm
Please log in for more thread options Thanks very much for the help.
I have an older, brick, plaster-walled house. There are two stories and a finished basement. I have a Linksys BEFSR81 router in a room on the second floor into which the Comcast cable comes and my main desktop PC lives. This room is wired to 2 bedrooms on the second floor, one room on the first floor, and the main living area in the basement. In one of the bedrooms on the second floor, I have a Linksys WAP54G with the 7dB antennae. I put the WAP in a bedroom because the room with the cable has a ton of electronics. The room on the first floor has not been good for the WAP because it's built on a concrete slab and really is apart from the rest of the house. That room has the family computer, wired to the BEFSR81. I have 2 daughters in college who use their laptops when they are home for breaks and the summer. They work in a room on the first floor that gets good, but not great, signal. I'd like to get better signal in that room. On the first floor, just below the WAP, I have a TiVo and a music device (SquuezeBox) that essentially plays music from the internet. I don't use it to connect to a music server in the house. I also have an iPod Touch and a cellphone with wifi that I like to roam with. We have an outside porch and I get no signal there. In addition to better signal for the kids' laptops, I'd love to be able to get signal on the porch. I have tried the Linksys range expander. It worked well for signal to the laptops (but not the outside porch), but kept disconnecting from the WAP. I kept having to reset it. Thanks very much for any suggestions. On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:05:52 -0700 (PDT), seaweedsl | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by seaweedsl on June 20, 2008, 12:13 pm
Please log in for more thread options > Thanks very much for the help.
> > I have an older, brick, plaster-walled house. There are two stories > and a finished basement. I have a Linksys BEFSR81 router in a room on > the second floor into which the Comcast cable comes and my main > desktop PC lives. This room is wired to 2 bedrooms on the second > floor, one room on the first floor, and the main living area in the > basement. In one of the bedrooms on the second floor, I have a Linksys > WAP54G with the 7dB antennae. I put the WAP in a bedroom because the > room with the cable has a ton of electronics. The room on the first > floor has not been good for the WAP because it's built on a concrete > slab and really is apart from the rest of the house. That room has the > family computer, wired to the BEFSR81. > > I have 2 daughters in college who use their laptops when they are home > for breaks and the summer. They work in a room on the first floor that > gets good, but not great, signal. I'd like to get better signal in > that room. > > On the first floor, just below the WAP, I have a TiVo and a music > device (SquuezeBox) that essentially plays music from the internet. I > don't use it to connect to a music server in the house. I also have an > iPod Touch and a cellphone with wifi that I like to roam with. We have > an outside porch and I get no signal there. In addition to better > signal for the kids' laptops, I'd love to be able to get signal on the > porch. > > I have tried the Linksys range expander. It worked well for signal to > the laptops (but not the outside porch), but kept disconnecting from > the WAP. I kept having to reset it. OK. That's great that you have ethernet everywhere already. I'm not totally clear on the setup, but close enough, I think, to offer suggestions and comments: First, consider the 7dbi omni antenna on your existing WAP. It radiates in a disc for 360 around the antenna. Because it's 7 dbi, it's actually a narrower disc than the doughnut shape of a stock 2dbi omni. So, ff you have it pointed up (normal) on the second floor,then anything above or below it is in the dead zone. Or weak zone. Tilting it down so that the side of it points to your most distant area (porch) may help. Putting a reflector on it should help even more: http://users.picknowl.com.au/~gloaming_agnet/ant2.html http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html Try it with your old stock antenna as well as the 7 dbi one to see which works better with the reflector. But I wonder if upstairs is where you want the WAP. Is there any client upstairs that connects wirelessly? If not, more it downstairs and you can even try a reflector there towards the porch. Anything in the room with the AP will probably work no matter what you do with the antenna pointing, so you are looking for improving the most distant point that needs to connect to the router. If this doesn't work or you need to keep that WAP upstairs for some reason or another, add on another inexpensive wireless G Access Point or router to your ethernet in a strategic location downstairs - closer to the porch. Because you have brick construction, it's going to have to be pretty close to the porch to work, but you'll see. Play around a bit. The reflector may allow you to place it a little further if you point towards the porch. Location in the room is important. Higher is often better for distance to other rooms, as there are less things in the way. I mentioned getting a wireless router because it can also act as an AP and has the advantage of acting as a switch and allowing you to connect 3 more items to the back, thus multiplying one ethernet cable. The ethernet from your main router connects to one of the LAN ports, not the WAN on the additional router-as-AP. To find a decent router, just go to Newegg.com and start with the cheapest until you find one with good ratings by a lot of people. Or just get a Linksys since you already are familiar with the interface. The WRT54GL (L important) has several advantages over the plain WRT54G, so get that if you are willing to pay $60. http://tinyurl.com/3q8e= 3u Come back with setup questions or whatever else here. Steve | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Bill on June 20, 2008, 6:43 pm
Please log in for more thread options Steve,
Thank you very, very much for the detailed information. I do have the 7db omni antennae on the WAP54G. In addition, I have the do-it-yourself "WindSurfer" parabolic reflectors on the antennae. I have done some very limited testing and am pretty convinced that the reflectors offer a small, but real, improvement. The reason the WAP is on the second floor is that the only wired room on the first floor is the awful (for signal) built-on-a-slab room. It's just not a good place for the WAP. (The outside porch to which I want to get signal is just outside that room.) I have set something up that now gets very good signal to the porch. I resurrected the Linksys Range Expander and placed it on the first floor, at the opposite end of the wired-room-with-no-signal. It is behaving well and getting great signal to the laptops. In the first floor room next to the porch, I added a Netgear wireless router configured as a repeater of the Linksys WAP54G. It's giving me great signal on the porch. But ... I'm more the "tweak it until it's as good as possible" rather than "don't fix what ain't broken" kind of guy. And I don't mind spending a few more dollars. So ... would I be better off using the WRT54GL in place of both the WAP54G and the Netgear? Or replace the Netgear with another WAP54G configured as a repeater (since they'd both then be Linksys)? I don't need the extra ethernet ports of a router in any location. Is a router configured as a WAP better than a dedicated WAP? It seems counter-intuitive to me. Finally ... it seems the best configuration given the constraints of my house are ... the WAP in a middle room on the second floor, a repeater/range expander at one end of the first floor, and a repeater at the other end of the first floor (in the "dead" room). Which device(s) do you recommend for the 3 locations? Three WRT54GL's, one configured as a WAP and the others as repeaters? Thanks a million. On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:13:36 -0700 (PDT), seaweedsl >> Thanks very much for the help.
>> >> I have an older, brick, plaster-walled house. There are two stories >> and a finished basement. I have a Linksys BEFSR81 router in a room on >> the second floor into which the Comcast cable comes and my main >> desktop PC lives. This room is wired to 2 bedrooms on the second >> floor, one room on the first floor, and the main living area in the >> basement. In one of the bedrooms on the second floor, I have a Linksys >> WAP54G with the 7dB antennae. I put the WAP in a bedroom because the >> room with the cable has a ton of electronics. The room on the first >> floor has not been good for the WAP because it's built on a concrete >> slab and really is apart from the rest of the house. That room has the >> family computer, wired to the BEFSR81. >> >> I have 2 daughters in college who use their laptops when they are home >> for breaks and the summer. They work in a room on the first floor that >> gets good, but not great, signal. I'd like to get better signal in >> that room. >> >> On the first floor, just below the WAP, I have a TiVo and a music >> device (SquuezeBox) that essentially plays music from the internet. I >> don't use it to connect to a music server in the house. I also have an >> iPod Touch and a cellphone with wifi that I like to roam with. We have >> an outside porch and I get no signal there. In addition to better >> signal for the kids' laptops, I'd love to be able to get signal on the >> porch. >> >> I have tried the Linksys range expander. It worked well for signal to >> the laptops (but not the outside porch), but kept disconnecting from >> the WAP. I kept having to reset it. >
>OK. That's great that you have ethernet everywhere already. I'm not >totally clear on the setup, but close enough, I think, to offer >suggestions and comments: > >First, consider the 7dbi omni antenna on your existing WAP. It >radiates in a disc for 360 around the antenna. Because it's 7 dbi, >it's actually a narrower disc than the doughnut shape of a stock 2dbi >omni. >So, ff you have it pointed up (normal) on the second floor,then >anything above or below it is in the dead zone. Or weak zone. >Tilting it down so that the side of it points to your most distant >area (porch) may help. Putting a reflector on it should help even >more: > >http://users.picknowl.com.au/~gloaming_agnet/ant2.html >http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html > >Try it with your old stock antenna as well as the 7 dbi one to see >which works better with the reflector. > >But I wonder if upstairs is where you want the WAP. Is there any >client upstairs that connects wirelessly? If not, more it downstairs >and you can even try a reflector there towards the porch. Anything >in the room with the AP will probably work no matter what you do with >the antenna pointing, so you are looking for improving the most >distant point that needs to connect to the router. > >If this doesn't work or you need to keep that WAP upstairs for some >reason or another, add on another inexpensive wireless G Access Point >or router to your ethernet in a strategic location downstairs - closer >to the porch. Because you have brick construction, it's going to have >to be pretty close to the porch to work, but you'll see. Play around a >bit. The reflector may allow you to place it a little further if you >point towards the porch. > >Location in the room is important. Higher is often better for distance >to other rooms, as there are less things in the way. > >I mentioned getting a wireless router because it can also act as an AP >and has the advantage of acting as a switch and allowing you to >connect 3 more items to the back, thus multiplying one ethernet >cable. The ethernet from your main router connects to one of the LAN >ports, not the WAN on the additional router-as-AP. > >To find a decent router, just go to Newegg.com and start with the >cheapest until you find one with good ratings by a lot of people. Or >just get a Linksys since you already are familiar with the interface. >The WRT54GL (L important) has several advantages over the plain >WRT54G, so get that if you are willing to pay $60. http://tinyurl.com/3q8e3u > >Come back with setup questions or whatever else here. > >Steve | ||||||||||||||||||||||
>No, I don't think an N router operating in G mode will offer any
>advantage. In fact, may reduce your current options if it doesn't
>have removable antennas.
>
> Instead, why don't you go ahead and give us a description of your
>router model and the various devices that connect to it. Describe your
>house layout and where the problems are.
>
>There is almost certainly a good solution using G, perhaps with a
>higher gain antenna (or reflector) perhaps adding a second AP
>connected by cable or powerline networking to your existing router.
>
>Steve