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How to Boost WiFi Signal in House

David Logan 3,427 Comments

Video – VLog #48

How to boost WiFi signal in home-office?

How can I boost my WiFi signal in my home?

How can I fix a weak WiFi signal in my house?

Script – VLog #48

Willie Nicol: Hello everyone and welcome to another action packed, fun filled episode of The Techno Dinosaur Meets the I.T Geek. I am the I.T. Geek …. I’m not the I.T. Geek, I’m the Techno Dinosaur, Willie Nicol, personal development coach based in South Ayrshire, Scotland. My partner in crime is the I.T. Geek, David Logan. So, how are you today David and where are you?

David Logan: Hi Willie, I’m good. I’m David Logan the I.T. Geek, the guy who takes the jargon out of technology for you the home user, the home office worker. And I’m based here in Dumfries, in the south of Scotland today. Thank you, Willie.

Willie Nicol: Brilliant David, thank you. An I.T. topic close to my heart because it’s caused me quite a few problems – WIFI dead spots in your house. You have your router, and you have all your bits and bobs but if you’re WIFI doesn’t work, particularly in the situation we’re in now where many, many of us are working from home, that can be a problem. So, what can we do to overcome WIFI dead spots David?

David Logan: Great question Willie. Thank you for the question. So, what we can do is simplistically we can get WIFI boosters. Those basically …. what they do is you put them on the edge of the range of the WIFI, plug it in and link it in with your router and I’ll expand it a bit more. Okay?

Willie Nicol: Okay

David Logan: Now, there’s different brands. There’s TP-Link, brands, there’s the brand you mentioned before there, Solwise, when we were talking. So, they’re good cheap brands. Solwise I don’t think you can buy on the high street. I think you’ve got to buy online, correct me if I’m wrong.

Willie Nicol: I bought them online and after finding out to my astonishment that what you did was …. you plugged them into a wall socket, your electrical wall socket, and then you had an ethernet cable to plug into whatever it was and the signal went round the electric circuit, am I correct?  

David Logan: Yes, well, that’s the second one, it lets the electric pass through. So, that’s the next stage. That doesn’t just pick up the WIFI signal that’s actually picking up your signal from your router and it goes through that electric ring, that electric ring. Now, that’s all good and fair if you’ve only got the one ring. But if you’ve got more than two rings. So, if you’ve got say one half goes on one ring, the other half goes on the other ring, and you want to extend the WIFI to your second ring, that potentially won’t work.

Willie Nicol: I understand …

David Logan: So, that’s where if you’ve got that and you’ve got a WIFI dead spot in this other part of the house, that’s where you potentially need to put in some kind of cable from your router into where the ring one is, put a cable from there into the other part of the building of your house, your office, put a cable around. This type of cable nowadays is a networking cable, is cat 6 or even if you want to future proof it go into cat 7. So, that’s C.A.T 7.

Willie Nicol: Yep, I understand because my wife has an office in our extension which is in another electrical circuit, so we did have to hard wire from the router round the side of the house into her office because the Solwise solution didn’t work. The booster/expander we bought from BT didn’t work so we ended up hardwiring into her office.

David Logan: You, sorry for interrupting, you mentioned another variant of booster there, WIFI booster, a BT booster. It’s like a big black plug that plugs into the socket. They are good but it’s like all technology, everything’s good when it works!

Willie Nicol: Quite so. I know that something’s not working when I hear her scream from the rear of the house!

David Logan: Do you give her tea to placate her, do you?

Willie Nicol: No, we have overcome the problems. But the way, for example, I’m a BT customer I’m supposed to get fibre broadband. And I think you probably get fibre broadband at the little green box at the end of the road and thereafter it’s a copper wire. So we’re working on 70’s technology right into the house.

Willie Nicol: So, for the home worker and, you know, the home office worker, what’s the best way to solve these WIFI problems? The boosters, the expanders, the electrical plugs or a combination of them all?

David Logan: I’d say it’s probably a combination of them all. So, the easiest and quickest is probably the booster.

David Logan: Now if you’re in an office environment or even a home environment and money is no object, if I can use that term, then you can create, you can put cables out through that building that connect to your WIFI expanders or extenders from there. This is like based on the model you’re saying for your wife. You’ve got a cable going through, right through the back, to plug into her computer. Instead of plugging into a computer you plug it into a WIFI access point and that puts out the WIFI signal, and these plugs that you can also put in an Ethernet cable so you can still plug in a computer or a laptop or other device.

Willie Nicol: Splendid

David Logan: So, it’s almost like …. “Do you want a Rolls Royce system? Or do you want a Mini car solution?” Mini car, you might have lots of little bits, you know repeaters, or you could have a series of the things, but it depends what you want and obviously the end result is the quality.

Willie Nicol: Yeah, and budget constraints being as they are, people are probably looking for the best bang for their buck for performance against cost.

Willie Nicol: So, thank you very much for that David. I hope that has been useful to the home worker. If you have any problems or issues or need any advice, contact my good friend here, David Logan, the I.T Geek who will set you right. Is that not correct David?

David Logan: Absolutely. The brands I’d go for are the ones I said at the start. Look for TP-Link, that’s T for Tommy, P for Papa, L for Lima, I for India, N for November, K for Kilo. Or Solwise, S.O.L.W.I.S.E. Those are cheap, they’re reliable. If you want to ask any questions feel free, I’ve used TP-Link and I’ve used Solwise, so feel free to ask me.

Willie Nicol: Fantastic David. Right, so there you have it boys and girls. If you need any help contact David. So …. all that remains for me to say is stay safe, stay well and have some fun. Goodbye from me, Willie Nicol, the Techno Dinosaur.

David Logan: Thank you Willie. Thank you for that question. Great question as always.

David Logan: To you the viewer, we need more subscribers for our YouTube channel. Subscribe down here please. No laughing Willie. Subscribe down here.

Willie Nicol: Can’t help it David!!

David Logan: Carry on everybody. Enjoy your week. Stay safe, stay well and have a great week. Bye.

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