I need some advice!

[Guest]

Ok. Here's my problem...

In a couple of months my parents are getting a side first story extension on our house. Which my new bedroom will be in since my current bedroom is awfully tiny! We've got our Virgin Media broadband router installed in my current bedroom but the WiFi is so unstable for whatever reason I don't know. It's impossible to watch a YouTube video on my phone whilst on the toilet having a *** because the WiFi drops every minute. In my current bedroom the WiFi isn't any trouble is completely fine. Anywhere else in the house though. Completely unstable. My new downstairs bedroom will be at the complete opposite side of our house so getting a stable WiFi connection from my new bedroom to my current bedroom simply won't happen.

Now here's what I need help with...

What would the best solid way to gain access to the Internet from my new bedroom? Is it possible to split the cable coming off the street into the house and lead one end to the extension and stick another modem on the end?

Please help. Thanks.

 

[RealBeast]

You need to add a wireless access point in your area of the house to the current router. You can either connect it to the router with an Ethernet cable or with a pair of powerline adapters over the home electrical circuits. While you will not get the 200Mbps or 500Mbps that powerline advertises, you should get a solid 20-40Mbps connection that will be adequate for YouTube videos.

 

[Guest]

You need to add a wireless access point in your area of the house to the current router. You can either connect it to the router with an Ethernet cable or with a pair of powerline adapters over the home electrical circuits. While you will not get the 200Mbps or 500Mbps that powerline advertises, you should get a solid 20-40Mbps connection that will be adequate for YouTube videos.

Is there any other solution that would get me 60 Mb/s? We've got some of them in the past and they are slow as heck. The download speed is pretty important.

 

[evti]

There are a couple options, the plausibility of each depends on certain factors:

1. Extend an ethernet cable from the modem to your room (you can hide it under carpet and whatnot, but I know they make ethernet cable up to 100ft long)
2. As RealBeast said, use powerline adapters.
3. Diagnose any possible wifi problems that might exist
4. Set a repeater somewhere between your room and the wireless router

 

[RealBeast]

Is there any other solution that would get me 60 Mb/s? We've got some of them in the past and they are slow as heck. The download speed is pretty important.

Is your Internet connection over 50Mbps?

Powerline is hit and miss at 60, the very best rate up to near 80 ( http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/powerline-charts/view ) but that is under ideal conditions so I would not bet on it. A cable is the number one choice, but you could also place an access point NEAR that end of the house off cable or powerline.

If you can run a cable, it can be up to 100 meters long -- you can buy a 500 ft spool of CAT5e at Home Depot and the cable ends and crimp them on -- very easy, I make all my own cables to custom length. Here is a wiring diagram for the 568A pattern you want (or just look at the color order of a premade cable): http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/network/cable/cable5.htm

I did not mention a standard repeater because they too tend to be unreliable, instead I would use routers with DD-WRT firmware 24 in a repeater bridge or WDS setup -- somewhat similar to a repeater but just a little more complex. Either should work fine and will involve several (probably three -- one to send one midway and one at your destination point depending on the signal strength that you achieve that you can check with inSSIDer, a free very useful network signal diagnostic tool). DD-WRT capable routers are critical and there is a database of capable routers at the link below. Take a look here for general information all the way through detailed instructions: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page