jbl

BT Homehub1.5 is upstairs and connected to the imac.
My macbook is downstairs and connected to the hh1.5 via Solwise Powerline plugs.
Old cottage has thick stone walls so wifi is poor downstairs. Would a wifi repeater unit help solve this ie take the weak signal and boost it ?
If so which are mac' compatible and work well ?
Thanks

Brian

JackClark

Connect a wireless router to the Powerline plug, I'd use an Airport Express but the Extreme has better range.

john banks

Depends on the speed of your internet connection and the speed (actual not claimed/up to) you get with your powerline stuff on your electrical installation, and whether your bottleneck is internet connection or whether you are doing large file transfers across your network.

Wifi repeaters that take a signal from wifi tend to be slow.

In our old stone house I've put Gigabit wiring outside and bring it in where I can as there was already telephone cable hole drilled through the thick stone. For one bit where I'd have to mess up decor I don't want to redo I use 500Mbps AV500 powerline stuff, but the throughput is only 16Mbps once it has gone through two distribution boards and a few metres with uncongested wireless N. Fast enough for my 4-6Mbps internet, fast enough for remote desktop.

Anything I can plug into Gigabit and any way I can get wiring into where I want to use it I will do though.

When I'm doing further building work the AV500 will only be used to do a small final hop to one room on the same ring main as where a Gigabit switch will be wired to Cat 6 cable, then the throughput based on similar testing will be about 100-200Mbps (still much lower than claimed 500!)

The bottlenecks add up. Thinking creatively is required in old houses, for me lots of Cat 6, gigabit switches and using old home hubs as wireless stations works well.