Two routers/home hubs.... will that work?

[Anonymousbird]

We have a long thin house. My wireless router is right at one end (in kitchen/family room) and works well to our computer which is also up that end.

We are renovating, following which we will actually have a study right at the other end of the house. I know for a fact that my router does not "ping" that far.

If in future I want to use a laptop, say, in the study, can I simply plug in second wireless router down that end (there is a working phone point), and have two wireless routers operating at the same time, off the same phone line? Will that work?

Just thinking about how to get wireless across the length of the house and if it needs any wiring to achieve this, now is the time to wire up.

Putting the router in the middle of the house is not an option, and it doesn't work - we've tried it!

What you need is a Wireless repeater not another router.

I've heard good things about people buying the gadgets that use their home mains wiring for networking. So you have a little gadget you plug into a plug socket near your router and then connect to your router with a cable. You then plug another little gadget into a plug socket at the opposite end of the house and then connect that to either a (wireless) router or straight into another computer.

Search on Amazon for Home Plug for examples.

If you're renovating though I'd consider actually trying to run network cables around the house...

Those network plugs are good - but be aware that it might in fact wire you up to another house in your street. So if they are also using the network plug things they could possibly hack into your home network.

Of course this is a small chance because firstly there is only a small chance they might also be using it, and secondly because even if they are using it they would have to be technologically savvy to realise. And thirdly they would have to be untrustworthy to want to do it.

If you're renovating and presumably rewiring it's really easy to run an ethernet cable in at the same time, which is definitely the most trouble-free solution. Go for that if you can.

Certainly the HomePlug type devices can be used to provide connections (some of my clients have used them where wireless even from one side of the house to the other with devices in full view of one another and no walls or doors can sometimes not work !!) but I would tend to keep that in reserve as you might want to use data over mains for linking video/audio from one part to another in the home...

(NB for BertieBotts, I think you should find most of these devices will have built-in encryption these days, and while someone might be on the same phase from the local substation - eg 3 doors away - there should be limited chance of access or interference because of circuit breakers and your mains metering equipment at each home.)

As prism has indicated, if you are in a position to cable fresh, then going either below the floorboards from one part to the other, or up to the loft and down again, may be worthwhile.

Do, first, check that your second wireless device covers the areas you expect to use, as you don't want to have to do any movement of the cable once fitted.

You can get suitable faceplates with RJ45 (ethernet) sockets on, and if you are going to link from one part to another in the house, consider using something like plastic drainpipe down through the wall so you can add any further cables you need, and if possible, fit two cables when you do the work first time round, and you will need a double socket faceplates - one could be Cat5 (10-100 Mbps) and a second could be Cat6 (for up to 1000 Mbps). Get double sockets for the faceplates even if you only fit a single Cat5 cable.

Do see if you can get solid core cable (I still have part of a 1000 foot reel) because the short cables use multiple strands for flexibility but are not especially strong, so better to get something designed for the task. The cable should cost no more than say 15p to 25p per metre and any larger cost is perhaps a rip-off!

You cannot get 2 routers to work together on the same BT line. One might work, but never both.

If you have a spare wireless router gathering dust on a shelf, then it could be used, so long as you can access the control screen.

First you'd need to set the IP address for the second router so it does not clash with the first router. That means you will still be able to access the two routers, and ensure the wireless channels are different.

Disable the DHCP facility on the second router and when a device connects to the second router, asking for an IP address, the first router (via the cable) will send a reply and the device (laptop, mobile phone, iPad) will then be using the BT connection at the first router and be transparently connected to the first.

It's probably only worthwhile if you are sure you can control the second router and that it offers what you need (easy access to turn off DHCP, etc)

"Those network plugs are good - but be aware that it might in fact wire you up to another house in your street. So if they are also using the network plug things they could possibly hack into your home network."

The electricity meter (consumer unit) is meant to act as a block for networks which use your mains cables. So other houses along the street can't get onto your network.

So hacking shouldn't be a worry. It's certainly not as easy as any neighbour with a homeplug piece of kit being able to get onto your network. There's an awful lot of physics in how mains power actually works that is trying awfully hard to stop this from happening.

However you can also encrypt your network if you want to be really sure.

Ah okay, sorry :) A few years ago XP used to work with computers and his colleague apparently encountered this happening - but perhaps that was the first stage of these kind of things which weren't as well thought out?

No prob BB, it has been a while now that they've been available, and you hardly see mention of the original (14 Mbps) devices, as they have moved on to 85 Mbps, 200 Mbps and so on.

I remember fitting one at a client's home and the instructions said it may not work even through an extension (1 mains plug to 4 sockets) unit, which we had to use because the shape of the HomePlug unit was such it would not fit into the socket (too close to floor and a radiator above it).

However, my one word of caution (admittedly these were the oldest units, being 14 Mbps) concerns the way they can heat up and the glue holding the outer case over the top can be made liquid, so you might end up with a device where the case comes away and live components may be accessible.

It was overcome at the time with a good length of insulating tape, but still a 'gotcha' even if it was only one (old) design, as those might end up on Ebay / Gumtree, or in your local paper...