Router w/ Concrete Walls

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x0vash0x

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I know the obvious answer of 'don't have concrete walls' and 'hardwire' but neither are practical. The actual apartment is about 750sqft so not huge, but the walls at literally reinforced concrete and destroy signals between rooms. I'm wondering what my best wifi option is given this. I was thinking mesh, with each unit placed essentially next to each other on either side of the concrete walls.
 
wired, tuck the cable around corners. Hard to know what you are trying to do though, just flood the area with wifi for phones or your gaming pc, tv etc? You can create mini wired networks like if you have a tv, console, blueray player receiver etc, you can put a router running in client mode so they all wire to it and then it connects to another wireless point across the room.

If i were doing a mesh I would mix wired in there too. LIke in my case i use unifi so some of my access points are wired to the main switch and some are in standalone mesh mode.

Nothing you can do at this point with this apartment is 'practical' but I imagine the goal is as best as you can get without throwing a ton of money at it. Honestly wired isn't going to be the worst but it will give you the best connection. Ive tracked it along the ceiling in my last house that i rented, get cable that matches the color and it is less intrusive. But wire like your gaming pc/tv to your router, and then run a wire to your main room with an access point on it to distribute wifi around the room for mobile stuff.

My random thoughts on it.
 
I've dealt with this at the in-law's place in India where everything is concrete--walls, ceilings, floors, and the best bet is to use mesh with a powerline supplied wired backbone. So you use powerline adapters to create a 'wired' network and then run your mesh over that. Not perfect, but beats straight wireless any day and no running wires.
 
I live in a Prussian building. German masonry, rebar, drill bit proving grounds.

Wifi can't even make a 90 degrees corner. NOTHING works as it should.

Solution was to poke a cable through one of the walls (might as well have used dynamite for that), place a raspberry PI in the target room, hardwire it, and bridge its wireless adapter with the wired adapter. Works great. Cheap.
The how-to in Raspberry's documentation actually worked to a tee.
 
One centrally placed Unifi U6-LR should be enough. Powerline connection between two of them if not.
 
SamirD said:
With concrete? No way in hell--nothing can pierce through that.
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Mine goes through a couple of load bearing ones. Also diagonally through a ceiling. I can also use a measly Mikrotik AP several floors down in a park outside a concrete building. And those walls were a m.....fucker to drill through.
 
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Maybe something like the unifi building bridge kit? Put em right up against the wall on opposite sides.
 
Meeho said:
Mine goes through a couple of load bearing ones. Also diagonally through a ceiling. I can also use a measly Mikrotik AP several floors down in a park outside a concrete building. And those walls were a m.....fucker to drill through.
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But just regular load bearing or concrete load bearing? Unless your wifi is using gamma rays, I don't see it penetrating.
 
uberjon said:
Maybe something like the unifi building bridge kit? Put em right up against the wall on opposite sides.
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This would be an interesting experiment, although powerline adapters on either side of the wall will probably win by comparison.
 
powerline adapter (you probably need to try if you circuit allow a good signal) is relatively cheap and really easy to try, you plug ethernet on a electric wall plug and on an other electrict plug in the other section you plug an ethernet and you share your network easily like that.
 
Do both rooms powersockets share one powerline (one fuse)?
Maybe hook it up through there and then repeater or mesh it from the other side.
 
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Carlyle2020 said:
Do both rooms powersockets share one powerline (one fuse)?
Maybe hook it up through there and then repeater or mesh it from the other side.
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Even if they don't, the newest powerlines that also use the grounding pin won't be phased by that.
 
Any chance the apartment is wired for cable TV? If so check out MoCA adapters -- ethernet over coaxial cable. If you have suitable coax they're usually much better than powerline adapters. The latest models can do 2.5Gb, though of course 1Gb is cheaper. Point to point is fastest, but it works with splitters as long as you have MoCA compatible ones. MoCA uses higher frequencies than cable TV & Internet, so you need high frequency splitters. If you go this route be sure you have a MoCA filter on any line coming into your unit. If you don't you might find neighbors' devices connecting to your router. A MoCA filter is basically a low pass filter. It blocks MoCA's higher frequency signals but not the signals used by cable.
 
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