Extending wifi to garden room (and a network problem I forgot I had)

Phantom151

Stab in the dark time...

I think that the black box is distributing sattelite tv round the house. The bunched cables look to be the start points to what is going to be a home network. If I'm right then you need to ask them to pull a cable from there through to the garden room. It looks like you'll probably get a patch panel in a cabinet installed in that location which will link FTTP to every room that has a network port installed. Depending on how the cables are running out of that room will depend on how simple the running of the new cable will be.

I can't post links but if you search for "patch panel in a cabinet" you'll see what I beleive will be going in there.

ETA, depending on how far the closest room is to the garden room it might be easier to add a wi-fi extending socket and boost the signal that way. Cable will be better but sometimes it isn't feasable.

doningtonphil

frankersBri said:

I have one of these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01LXOZ4EN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Wifi in one of the upstairs rooms was so poor as basically on a diagonal from the Wifi router, going through too many walls/floors! It essentially (in my non technical terms!) turns the electricty circuit into something to transmit the internet. You plug one thing into the main router then put the wifi extender into a plug socket on the same circuit (Not sure specifics on what "same circuit" means though..). It makes a new wifi network, but you can rename it to the same as your main one so devices can use both easily.

Not sure if that compeltely makes sense, but has worked well for me!

+1 for this.  We have 2 garden rooms.  I bought the kit in the above link but have 3 of the 'slave boxes'.  One in the house and one in each of the garden rooms which are progressively furhter away down the garden.  The internet is fine.

Contrary to what frankersBri said, mine are set up so they are all called the same so effectively the same network.  I can start watching something on th'iplayer in my office (the furthest one away) on my laptop and wonder up the garden to the house wiht it and not lose connection once.  i have no doubt it will have been switching between the untis as I went.

It may be that it is not the fastest, but i certainly dont see any lag between the one at the furthest point and the wifi from the router

casper_gutman

We were too short sighted to install a network cable to our summerhouse/garden office. We have a mesh WiFi system in the house, with the main unit being a TP-Link Deco P9, which uses powerline technology to connect to a similar unit in the garden office.

I'd tried using multiple routers/WiFi extenders set to the same SSID in the past, but devices never seemed to switch between them when I walked around the house unless I turned the WiFi off and on again. The mesh units work just the way I'd want them to.

If I was building a system from scratch I'd use a mesh WiFi system along with an ethernet connection between the units.

SootySweep1

Hi
We had a couple of spots around our house with weak WiFi signal
We tried the WiFi extenders that plug in to your power sockets but they need to be on the same ring main to work. I've just recently bought a Deco 5 mesh wifi network & that has worked for us.
Jen

Carrot007

FreeBear said:

Yes, there are gadgets that you can plug in to the sockets that convert the mains wiring in to networked cables. But... the speed isn't great and they could be a security risk. Personally, I wouldn't bother with them.

Entire nonsence based on the satet of things 20 years ago. (well maybe a bit less).

Speed and security are not an isusue however do no go below ones saying 1200/1300 for many reasons (the 600 might be usable but they may also be bad, the 500 etc are just really old tech still being sold). Of course wifi is a security risk depening on how you set if up as well so maybe people should not bother (expect people to connect to your wifi and secure it enough so that it gains them nothing is the way to go).

But yes run a cable if possible. The only reason I did not is it is a bad route and I would have had to throw it over the roof and really it would look bad!

(and yes I am saying I also had bad powerline adaptors before the 1200/1300 tech was purchased (though mainly dropouts and speed not security)).

(and for further reference on the 1200/1300 ones (I have a mix and am sure they are the safe thing and they jts changed the name) I can max out my broadband which at times gets a "perfect" 80/20 on adsl).

dickibobboy

Doozergirl said:

Totally unsexy wires. 

Four sets of loose Cat 5E headed for the four TV points and enough copper dropwire to shake a stick at.  

The internet coming into a cupboard in the lounge. Is the green wire where it comes in?

And the house board with no garden room on it, which I think is outside, so the powerline things wouldn't work anyway? 

Would it be impossible to pull new Cat 5 through whilst pulling copper out? The amount of slack is a little bit tight to pull it back from the TV. Maybe not impossible though. 

The wired route to the garden room from the lounge would be about 30 metres.   The distance, if I get the main router into the blue cupboard in the kitchen is only about 10 metres.  The garden is not big! 
 

If I still have the old router then I think the wire with that might be the first option, or do I try mesh first from there?  

I have spent a lot of reading back over this lot and doing a bit of back-up Googling, I think it's starting to sink in.  

Where’s your actual router? (the black cable with the red ends on) I imagine that’s just out of the picture. 

You say you have network points to every TV etc.. I imagine you have one at the point where your cupboard/modem/router is in the picture? Are they single points at each TV or double? I’ll assume single. 

Okay so the distribution cupboard you’ve pictured i can see all the network cables coiled up. These should be terminated either with RJ45 ends or ideally into a patch panel if you want to use them. 

You say you’d like to make all the other points in the house live for use (obviously the starting point to this is getting the cables terminated in the cupboard first) 

Going back to the TV cupboard you should have your main router which provided your wifi for the house along with some RJ45 points available for use (much like the switch that was mentioned previously).
I’m still assuming here that the network point at this TV point is a single one back to the distribution cupboard. 

Providing the location of your router as it is now is serving the house well with the wifi signal..

What i would do in your situation is: 

Get the cables all terminated in the distribution cupboard. 

Leave the router exactly where it is now. You can use a patch cable from the rear of that to serve your TV that’s next to it if you wish (also leaving it where it is now next to the ONT box makes it easier for any future calls to your provider when it’s all in one place still) 

Place another patch cable from the back of the router into the network point on the wall so that goes back to the distribution cupboard - this essentially will be the feed to provide the rest of the house with wired connectivity. 

Purchase a simple unmanaged network switch to place into the distribution cupboard - From there you can plug into the switch the cable that comes from the main router via the port you connected up earlier and then all the other points can connect into the switch to give them connectivity into the network. At this point if you decide to run some ethernet to the garden room you can click into the switch too.


(There is an option 2 which is where you could move the router into the distribution cupboard instead but to be honest i would leave it with doing the above as you’d still have to buy a switch to give you additional live ports (most routers only come with 4 sometimes even 2!) and like i said, it would make things easier when diagnosing with your provider should you have issues in the future) 

If you do decide to hardwire a cable to the garden room as said previously you can then buy a simple access point to give you wireless in there or use an old router in a bridged mode to save yourself some money. 

There is also nothing wrong with a decent set of home plugs, you have good new wiring and they are also secure, the only thing i’d be questioning is how the garden room is powered as i can’t see anything on your CU that relates to it. If it’s somehow powered on it’s own CU somewhere else and nothing to do with the one pictured then home plugs are no use to you. 

I hope all the above makes sense, i can ramble on at times! 

Bendy_House

Hi Doozer.

Where's your actual WiFi Router located?

Anyhoo, if you'll be running cables to the garden room, then that will probably be the ultimate solution.

However, there are two alternatives which are plug-and-play, cost little, and will almost certainly do the job for you in spades.

One is the Powerline adaptor method as suggested by Frankers (Eg: TP-Link TL-WPA422KIT). What could be easier than plugging the small unit into a power socket next to the router, connecting it by short Ethernet cable to the router, and then plugging the larger unit into a power socket in the garden room? Yes, it says it needs to be on the 'same' circuit, but I can confirm that a more basic version of these Powerline adaptors (no WiFi) works perfectly fine on two completely different 'rings' in the same house - they are, after all, all joined up in the CU, so I can't work out what they mean by 'same' circuit. Same house?! For the money - £40 - it has to be worth a go? If it doesn't work (it will...), you just return it.

The other almost-certainly-perfectly-acceptable solution is a WiFi extender, which consists of just one plug-in device. Oh look - that's easier than the Powerline adaptor! From what you describe, the WiFi range from your router is only just too weak to get to the garden room with your doors shut! If you plug a WiFi extender into a mains socket in an upstairs room facing the garden room, it will almost certainly give you the boost you will need. The unit simply picks up the existing WiFi signal from the router, and relays it on. Eg: TP-Link AC1750 (There are cheaper options - a bit of research will be needed to find the best performance/value).

ILoveSittingDown

Just to stick up for the powerlines for a second. I use them to connect my garden office to the internet in the house. I use it for working from home/online gaming with low ping/video calls/phone calls/netflix and get pretty much the same speed as WiFi in the house. I think they’re amazing

Grenage

The idea of putting the broadband router in the central location was a good one, and it's a shame the BT guy went for the easy/common option.

You could move the router to the central location but you'd need to move the broadband feed.  Alternatively you could just put a switch in the central location and connect it to your router using the existing cat6 feed.

At some point you might pull a cat cable back to the central spot from the summer house, and you can just plug it straight into the switch.

Emmia

ILoveSittingDown said:

Just to stick up for the powerlines for a second. I use them to connect my garden office to the internet in the house. I use it for working from home/online gaming with low ping/video calls/phone calls/netflix and get pretty much the same speed as WiFi in the house. I think they’re amazing

I'm also a fan. Living in a Victorian building conversion with walls that WiFi doesn't get through very well, and getting this system to work for us has been a lockdown lifesaver - no issues with video calls, etc.