Having just moved to my apartment in the US, one of the most difficult things to get used to coming from Taiwan was the scale of distance scale everything. Be it commuting to school, grabbing groceries, even the size of the rooms in the apartment for getting stuff in your own living space. While a large room is generally a good thing, one important utility is heavily impacted by this merit: networking.
The problem
The typical Wi-Fi router given by the service provider does a well enough job of covering the apartment space. But for rooms further away from the router, networking qualities suffers immensely from random packet drops, both downing the networking speed to less than one-twentieth of what was being paid for, makes video playbacks prone to random buffering, and incredibly stressful moments when the internet decides to drop midway through filling an online form.
While my flatmate had previously bought a Wi-Fi extender, the thing was a cheap model, prone to overheating after prolong uses. While it recovered the speed to one-tenth of the supposed speed, drops still occur on a regular basis, changing the infrequent network drop-out to a stable 30-minute drop-out cycle. Since I massively rely on networking for both work and entertainment, looking for a more permanent solution was quite the priority.
Searching for a solution
Getting a “better” Wi-Fi extender is an obvious solution, but not one I am very fond of. Despite the many outlets that we have in our rooms, there wasn’t one in the long hallway that is the main reason for a long transmission distance, so adding a Wi-Fi extended would mean running a long power-extender along the hallway (the inelegant solution that was previously being used with the cheap Wi-Fi extender). Also, I am still of the opinion that a good signal requires a physical wire, regardless of how far wireless technology has developed, but at the same time. I also don’t want to be fixing some 20+ meters of CAT6 cable around the apartment, as I wasn’t confident with my understanding of my lease statements on wall/floor fixations, and neither was I confident with my handy work at keeping such a long cable neat and functional.
The chosen solution
The solution that I finally decided on taking up relied on the abundance of good wiring that already existed in the apartment: Powerline networking kits, essentially using the power lines in your living space as a massive Ethernet signal transmission media, with the adapter machines placed on outlets. For me, choosing the model to buy was rather more demanding than I had thought:
Must have wired connection to outside device: It would be nice to have wired connections for more network critical tasks such as access to remote machines (
and online-gaming).Must have wirless connections to outside devices: I have a phone, and also would be handing if I immediately need the network for someone in my room.
Must have outlet by-pass. I would rather not have to give up a power outlet just for a relatively low-power device.
The first two actually limits my choices to rather high-end devices that cost around 130USD on Amazon, but you can look for starter kits for around 35-50USD, depending on the manufacturer if you are willing to give up a few functions. I don’t regret getting an overkill solution, as such supporting speeds also future-proofs any potential services upgrades in the future.
Setting the solution and the results
Basic set up the device was easy, simple connect the adapter and extender end of the kit into neighboring outlets, and connect the adapter to the router, and we are all set to go! Moved the extender to my bedroom, and yep! Getting nearly the max outgoing networking speed all the way in my room at the end of the hall, a near 30-50 times improvement!
There is still things that I haven’t taken care of yet: The connection in the wall is still not password protected, so I cannot (yet) protect against neighbors that manage to find out that we are potentially paying for their network. But for the time being, I’m happy that I am able to have a quality and reliable to the internet!