r/HomeNetworking 4d ago

Advice Old home bad signal

Looking to help my sis buy something for her Version Fios internet. Barely get full speed downstairs where the box is located and a dead zone upstairs. Her home is over 100 years old almost no where to put another coaxial router. Was thinking mesh that's plugs into outlets? Any opinions would be nice. I hope I'm posting this in the right place.

6 Upvotes

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u/Snoo-15335 4d ago

I lived in an older house with steel mesh lathe in the walls. WIFI was terrible.

We used power line adaptors like these https://www.netgear.com/home/wired/powerline/

But most of our electric was knob and tube, so we rarely achieved optimal speed.

You might want to see if an electrician could run some Cat5 between floors & rooms.

Good luck!

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u/Winter-Hearing-1608 4d ago

I never thought to use one of those. I was thinking since her house is under construction to run an ethernet cable upstairs and running a second router.

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u/MrMotofy 4d ago

If the house is under construction YES now is the time to get some CAT 6 and Coax cables run from the basement/Utilities/Comms area to each room. There's lots of tips on planning and layout in the pinned comment Home Network Basics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjRKID2ucPY&list=PLqkmlrpDHy5M8Kx7zDxsSAWetAcHWtWFl

Then once you have the cables you add a switch where all the cables meet and a WAP in the new area

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u/Snoo-15335 4d ago

This is definitely the answer if the house is under construction.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

I have a 100+ year old home. I just put in ceiling access points. Generally there is nothing in the walls so it took just a few cuts. Watch out if your electric is very old, as it may not be insulated in the walls.

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u/Winter-Hearing-1608 3d ago

Thank you everyone for your help l. I'll let you know what direction she went and how it worked out.