Calling Wi Fi Guru's - Advice?

[Clodfobble]

A completely different option... We were having problems getting a good enough signal to our downstairs MythTV box (long story short: we have a homemade TiVo-ripoff machine running Linux, and a second slave box downstairs that can stream recorded programs off of it so we can watch either upstairs or downstairs, and while our wireless signal was plenty strong enough for internet throughout the house, we would occasionally get buffering problems in the streaming TV signal.)

Mr. Clod's solution was to use an Ethernet-over-power box, which I had never heard of before--basically it's a little box that directly plugs your wireless router into any power outlet, and then a companion box is plugged into whatever outlet is near the item you want to get a signal to. The signal goes throughout the electrical cables in your house, no need for any additional wiring. It's not truly wireless per se, since you do have to be plugged into a nearby power outlet, but it's great for fixing that one spot in the house.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Mr. Clod's solution was to use an Ethernet-over-power box, which I had never heard of before--basically it's a little box that directly plugs your wireless router into any power outlet, and then a companion box is plugged into whatever outlet is near the item you want to get a signal to.

Ethernet over power is akin to a previous technology called X-10 Controller. X-10 works great in some places and is problematic in others. Furthermore things like plug-in protectors and some appliances can 'eat' the signal. If located on circuits powered by opposite phases, a 'signal shorting block' (forget the correct name) may be required in that breaker box so that signal will transfer to circuits powered by that other phase.

Signal strength can be fine and yet not enough to overcome intermittent noise pulses. IOW the signal is fine for asynchronous communication such as web surfing. But real-time communication (including Skype) would suffer from the periodic noise bursts. Yes, a neighbor's WiFi also could be noise to your Wifi connection.

Another testing tool is to use "Ping -t xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" to watch connections to that clone Tivo IP (xxx) address. Over an hour, every ping should be without loss. Same test on the Wifi connection could also be informative on the 'Ethernet on power' connection. And could be used to help locate something that was interfering with the Wifi connection (ie microwave oven).

Hardwired ethernet cable is a sure solution. Ethernet on power is a 'try it; you may like it' solution. However Wifi should have been more reliable if signal strength is so good that even running a microwave nearby does not cause signal loss. (Microwave ovens use the same frequency as WiFi.) Some tools and experiments to better understand what you have.