Question: How to increase home wireless coverage?

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Suprnova04

Limp Gawd
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Apr 1, 2004
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My boss has asked me to do something at his house to increase the coverage of his wireless network. He has cable internet, and a wireless router. His house is pretty big, so I am sure we'll need to add another device... but I'm not really sure what to get. Do I want to go for a WAP? I figured we could run a cat6 line through the crawlspace under his house from his existing router to the area not getting coverage and plug a WAP in there. Would there be problems interfacing with the wireless router he has? One SSID or two?

Are there any other considerations that I need to take into account?

Thanks!
-Dan-
 
What type of router is he currently using, 802.11ac offers a pretty large coverage area.
 
Awesome! thanks for the response :)

So this would be connected to the router via ethernet? Would we turn off the wireless on the router and just string a couple of these units off of it?
 
Suprnova04 said:
Awesome! thanks for the response :)

So this would be connected to the router via ethernet? Would we turn off the wireless on the router and just string a couple of these units off of it?
Click to expand...

Yep, they just connect via ethernet. They also offer "wireless uplink", which allows you to link multiple APs together without an additional ethernet run (still need to power them with POE though). http://wiki.ubnt.com/UniFi_FAQ#Wireless_Uplink I have not used this feature, so I can't say anything about its usefulness.

I use two Unifi's and a regular consumer wireless router in my home. I just set all three to minimize channel overlap manually. I havn't had any problems, not sure if this is the "correct" way. The optimal setup would probably be to leave all the wireless duties to the Unifi's, just to keep it clean.

Also, the Unifi controller software does not need to be running all the time. You only need to run it for the initial setup, and when you want to make changes.
 
wizdum said:
Yep, they just connect via ethernet. They also offer "wireless uplink", which allows you to link multiple APs together without an additional ethernet run (still need to power them with POE though). http://wiki.ubnt.com/UniFi_FAQ#Wireless_Uplink I have not used this feature, so I can't say anything about its usefulness.

I use two Unifi's and a regular consumer wireless router in my home. I just set all three to minimize channel overlap manually. I havn't had any problems, not sure if this is the "correct" way. The optimal setup would probably be to leave all the wireless duties to the Unifi's, just to keep it clean.

Also, the Unifi controller software does not need to be running all the time. You only need to run it for the initial setup, and when you want to make changes.
Click to expand...

Thanks a bunch for the information and the links... I think I'll give this product line a shot!!

Thanks,
Dan
 
The Unifi APs are part of a distributed wireless network where the APs are spread out over a coverage area and centrally managed.

Cisco has a ton of information available on this. Look up Cisco Unified Wireless Network. Their products may be different, but the general architecture and reasoning for this type of design is relatively the same. I wouldn't be surprised if the Unifi products have their own flavor of CAPWAP.
 
BobSutan said:
The Unifi APs are part of a distributed wireless network where the APs are spread out over a coverage area and centrally managed.

Cisco has a ton of information available on this. Look up Cisco Unified Wireless Network. Their products may be different, but the general architecture and reasoning for this type of design is relatively the same. I wouldn't be surprised if the Unifi products have their own flavor of CAPWAP.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll look into it :)
 
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