Need to extend WiFi signal in house

Troytempest

We have standard WiFi as full fibre not yet available.  House is 4 storey town house with the TalkTalk router on the 3rd floor at the front as that is where the master socket comes in.

Unfortunately on the ground floor and at the back of the house the WiFi is almost non existent.

Can any one advise what I can buy to improve things (doesn't have to be the cheapest but I would like it to work with a relatively simple set-up).

Thank you.

Vitor

I've not found powerline based systems that run data over the house wiring very good, but have had more success with 'mesh' WiFi that have multiple devices which send data traffic between themselves back to the base unit.

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MattMattMattUK

Troytempest said:

We have standard WiFi as full fibre not yet available.  House is 4 storey town house with the TalkTalk router on the 3rd floor at the front as that is where the master socket comes in.

Unfortunately on the ground floor and at the back of the house the WiFi is almost non existent.

Can any one advise what I can buy to improve things (doesn't have to be the cheapest but I would like it to work with a relatively simple set-up).

Thank you.

Who is your broadband provider? Some offer free, or fairly cheap extender options for their routers. 

Newcad

If you want simple then "mesh" will be better than the other types of extenders, but will usually cost more:

https://www.netgear.com/uk/hub/technology/wifi-extender-vs-mesh-wifi/

Troytempest

Thanks for comments - mesh is the way to go.....

MattMattMattUK

Troytempest said:

Thanks for comments - mesh is the way to go.....

Yes on a technical level, but most use the terms interchangeably, most WiFi extenders now use a mesh implementation (though some do not).

If you have an add on option with your broadband supplier that might be easiest, often they will supply you with at least one "disc/puck/extender" for free if you ask. That will use mesh technology and probably solve your issue.

Frozen_up_north

If you have a laptop with Windows 10, or 11, it can function as a WiFi extender. While not practical for permanent use, you could try it to see if a simple extender would suffice and could save wasted money buying one to find it still doesn’t reach… there are “mesh” solutions, but are at least 2 or 3 times the cost of a simple extender (circa £20).

jshm2

If you have new wiring in the house and one circuit box, then powerline will be better(and cheaper) than mesh. Especially if you have solid brick walls.  

victor2

Most hubs/routers provided by ISPs dom't have particularly good WiFi. It could be worth buying your own router (which you'll need for a mesh solution anyway) and seeing if that improves things. I added an Asus router to my VM hub, which I put in modem only mode, and had coverage in areas of my house where I didn't before. If you buy from somewhere like Amazon (fulfilled by Amazon), you can return it at no cost for a full refund if it doesn't do the job.

A WiFi extender will be cheaper, but may not be as good. As the above post, powerline will be cheaper too, but no guarantee it will work. Any of these you can try and return until you reach a solution.

Vitor

The MSE way would be to buy a couple of old, cheap laptops, add USB WiFi dongles and install Linux Mint configured with batman-adv to setup the mesh and hostapd to serve WiFi clients. Simples.

chrisw

victor2 said:

Most hubs/routers provided by ISPs dom't have particularly good WiFi. It could be worth buying your own router (which you'll need for a mesh solution anyway) and seeing if that improves things. 

You don't need your own router for mesh. You can just add it to your existing router. You can always turn off the existing router's Wi-Fi if you want, but I left mine on and it hasn't caused any issue.