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jenfamily1's avatar
jenfamily1
Dialled in
2 years ago
Solved

Wi fi dropping out to my son's shed

Hello everyone & a happy new year to you all.

I know I've broached this subject before and don't want to bore you with it again I know there may be only a few solutions to solve it. It's not practical for a variety of reasons to have a trench dug outside my back door for an external ethernet cable to be sunk into the ground & run to my son's smart tv housed in a timber shed about 4 metres from our kitchen door. Probably an expert on here has suggested Wi Fi extenders and I believe my son is going to look into this. The advice from a moderator here ( because I'm not on a package where these pods are sent FOC ) is to make sure if he buys one it should be a 'dual bandwidth' and should have more than the speed we get from the router which I'm sure is 250 mbps. What I wanted to ask you is ( speaking with an agent confused me ) our hub / router works on a dual band width ( I'm sure Jappitts & Apollo have told me this ) and regulates automatically which is the stronger signal of the two to send out? Our hub is situated at the foot of the stairwell ( this seemed the most practical place for Virgin to bring in the cable ) on one side of a 9 inch brick wall. Roughly the distance in metres for the signal to travel to my son's TV in the shed is approx 20 metres ( the length of my ethernet cable which was once used when he couldn't get a connection ) either through the wall and directly into a timber shed or along our hallway until the kitchen and out of the back door.I used to think that the signal strength was reduced at times depending on 'congestion' but the agent said this would only slow down the signal. Am I to assume that ( and we in our house don't use any gaming / laptop connectivity but  a little catch up from a V6 box occasionally ) that the reason the signal is intermitant is that from time to time the hub is redirecting the stronger signal somewhere else within the house??? You can tell I'm not tech savvy and wondered if you could explain in simple terms why this might be happening at odd times of the evening? Thank you all.If the wi Fi extender doesn't work then it's back to using the ethernet cable but leaving a window & letterbox open for it to pass through.

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  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person
    2 years ago

    Outdoor Ethernet cable is by far the best option, it doesn’t have to be buried, but could run along the bottom of a fence. Another option is a point-to-point radio link. This uses a small disk at each end of the link, but it’s far more expensive than a Ethernet cable.

    • jenfamily1's avatar
      jenfamily1
      Dialled in
      2 years ago

      I don't and wouldn't understand what a 'radio ink' is with discs at either end. Is this similar to a Wi Fi extender/

      • Tudor's avatar
        Tudor
        Very Insightful Person
        2 years ago

        A radio link is a wireless point to point link between two dishes, they can work on the same frequencies as WiFi and some can work on the much higher frequency of 60Ghz. You just plug in a Ethernet cable at each end and they then work exactly like a single Ethernet cable between two points. They do not suffer from radio interference although they can be restricted by very heavy rain or snow.

  • jbrennand's avatar
    jbrennand
    Very Insightful Person
    2 years ago

    Does the electricity supply to the shed run to the same consumer unit/fuse box that the Hub is on?

    I ask because my lad is a serious internet gamer (who thinks wifi is the work of Satan and should never be used for gaming), and as Tudor says, Ethernet cabling your devices is always the best way to go, but running cable to his room was problematic. So he uses a pair of Solwise AC1200 powerline adapters. His PC/Xbox/PS3/TV can now all be "wired" - with short Cat6 cables – back to the wireless router downstairs and he gets a solid 60-100 Mbps on our 350 package - he hasn't complained once in years!

    Worth considering whether that will work for your shed on your mains circuits, the two circuits must go through the same consumer unit/fuse box (most do) although eleccys often wire extension circuits into a different CU.  Circuits need to be free of any "noise". Y ou can also add a wifi access point alongside to boost that there as well. Or some PA’s have built in wifi too - look at the TP-Link offerings.

    See this for some info.....

    https://www.techadvisor.com/article/723387/best-powerline-adapters.html

     

    • jenfamily1's avatar
      jenfamily1
      Dialled in
      2 years ago

      I've just looked into my understairs cupd where the consumer unit is and the garden power seems to be run from a separate unit with a fuse although all the cabling may go through the house consumer. There is a separate fuse box in his shed too but i'll have to ask an eleccy to have a look and tell me. If the house ring main doesn't run along the same one as the shed power then I assume powerline adapters won't work? By the way what is a 350 package? I don't really know what I'm on any more as the names keep changing! I have 250 download speed, a telephone line, god knows how many channels most of which we don't watch! No film or extra sprts channels.Do you think Virgin's Wi Fi is better than many of these advertised on 'compare the market' there's huge price differences it seems!

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    A power cable had to be run to the shed, so why not an Ethernet cable now. There will obviously be a cost to dig a trench to install it, but that's done only once and will be superior to all alternatives.

    • jenfamily1's avatar
      jenfamily1
      Dialled in
      2 years ago

      Hi Roger & many thanks as I now remember you suggested this method a while back. I suppose like the old saying ' If you want a proper job done etc etc. but from what I remember many years ago, prior to thick concrete being laid outside our back door ( opposite his shed ) to be used as a hard standing space. An old shed was previously sited and a 'submarine' if that's what they call it joined the mains from our house to the exterior cabling which is clipped to a fence and into his shed. It's now well & truly sunk and tbh for the few times my son's actually complained about the lack of connection, I thought this was a lot of trouble to go to especially as sometime next year or early year after we may move.I did think about a longer external grade ethernet cable to be run through our letterbox into the porch and out through a fanlight all the way to the shed ( approx 30 metres in all ) What do you think?

  • Adduxi's avatar
    Adduxi
    Very Insightful Person
    2 years ago

    Ethernet cable can run 100mtrs with no loss. So I’m sure there is a way.  Don’t forget you can use a catenary wire to run the cable overhead from a house wall to the shed roof. It doesn’t always have to be buried.