Hello all, I'm having a sticky time in getting a consistent signal through my house right now. I have a Linksys router/cablemodem combo unit from Comcast in the kitchen, as close to the center of the house as I can get. I have one computer in the basement, about thirty feet over and fifteen down from the router, and one computer upstairs, around sixty feet over and ten feet up from the router. Neither computer can get a good signal, there seems to be too many floors/walls between them and the router. I tried purchasing a pair of repeaters and plugging them in between the router and the computers, but their help has been minimal. Likewise, I replaced the tiny antenna on the router and the downstairs computer with larger 5dBi omnis, to no avail.
This has me in a spot. I can't afford to have the house drilled up and wired, and a brief stint with the 'use your power lines as a network' stuff didn't work at all. I need to punch the signal through the floors, somehow, and am at a loss about how best to do it. If anyone has any advice, it'd be really appreciated!
Hi there, this is a common problem and if repeaters are not working well enough for you then you may just have to look at a higher powered AP. The standard Linksys is only about 40mW. Senao make an AP the ECB8610 which has a 400mW transmitter and uses an Atheros chipset which has a very high receive sensitivity as well. I have seen these work in places where most domestic APs will not. On average you can get up to 3 times the coverage. But you do have to remember that some objects like solid concrete and metal will block 2.4GHz no matter what power you transmit at. You would most likely still need your Linksys to do your user authentication but you could just plug the Senao into one of the Ethernet ports and set it to Auto channel and it will seek the best channel to use.
Good Luck
Dale
Need help spreading signal through a big house. 
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