I am letting my downstairs neighbor use the wireless signal from my WRT54G router. The problem is, she does not receive a usable signal unless she is out on her deck. This is because to make it into her apartment, the signal has to pass through a 20" thick steel-reinforced concrete floor. When she is on her deck, she is receiving the signal through my windows.

A cordless telephone also fails to transmit a usable signal between levels.

It is not practical to drop an Ethernet cable down to her level.

What would be the best and most cost effective method of improving her signal strength?

tanstaafl.

Run ethernet.

Or hang a wifi antenna outside a window where it can better radiate down to her level. Wifi antennas with coax cabling are readily eBuyalble.

Cheers

Is the floor plan at all "L-shaped"?

If so, then you could position the wifi at one end of the L so that it can "see" the lower level at the other end.

Really, you just have to get signal to *one* point on the lower level, and then install a second WRT54G down there as a repeater, and then her entire flat will be covered.

Cheers

Depending on how they wired electrical power for your places, you may or may not be able to get away with a powerline networking system.

Of course, as Mark points out, the best thing is to run an Ethernet line. My guess is that there must be some sort of conduit space where wiring, pipes, or whatever else goes up and down. Might be worth looking around.

Ethernet cables can be routed outside, then back inside.

It is OK to take the 'long way around' to get the cable from A to B. Up to about 100 meters, ethernet doesn't really care much about cable length. Just use a decent quality cable.

The main precaution is to avoid close proximity to high voltage electrical wiring and away from potential lightening strike points.

Even a few inches distance between parallel electrical and ethernet cables may be enough to allow the network to work. The more spacing, the better.

Can't say I've ever had a problem with running power and Ethernet together before. I've had numerous installations where they all share the same cable tray or conduit. Common-mode rejection takes care of that.

Why not put another WRT54G in a weatherproof box on her patio? That should cover her flat through the windows.

I'm in the exact same situation and this is what I've done. Works great. WRT54GL with DD-WRT acting as a repeater bridge.

Landlord has the router two floors up and I didn't get a reliable signal without it. Of course this was a good solution for me because I happened to have the router laying around in my box of toys.

Hmm this discussion just brought up a crazy thought. What would happen if you connected a Wireless router and wireless Card with a Coax cable? Would the router and the card see each other pefectly? Some residences may already have Coax cable wired up but not Ethernet so if it works this trick could come in handy.

There are coax ethernet adapters, which work similar to powerline ethernet adapters.

Connect the adapters to the cable ends, and you have effectively an ethernet network running through coax. Fairly high throughput speeds and generally very little speed degradation from signal interference, unlike powerline gear.

Mmm.. and it sounds as if they can co-exist with some cableTV/satTV setups.

That is probably the best way for me.

While running an Ethernet cable would undoubtedly be the best thing to do both from a performance point of view and in the interests of simplicity, the logistics of doing so are... untenable.

I suggested making a hole in my floor/her ceiling to my (for lack of a better term, handyman) and he got this deer in the headlights look with an expression of panic on his face and just shook his head. He was foreman of the crew that built this house and knows its construction better than anyone else, and is highly resourceful. It would be enormously difficult.

So, we'll stay with wireless. However...

You must assume that I have heard of the concept of wireless data transfer, and can even mouth buzzwords like WRT54G, router, bridge, Ethernet, and Cat5 cable in an attempt to impress people and make them think I know what I am talking about. The sad truth is that I am almost totally ignorant about such things. Probably it is a no-brainer to stick another WRT54G out on my neighbor's deck and have my router then talk to her router and re-propagate the signal. I have not the faintest idea how to go about doing that.

My router gets its input signal from my cable modem, and somehow magically transmits that signal into the air. How would I then tell her router not to look for a cable modem but to look for the signal from my router? What about passwords and access codes and stuff? How do I go about setting this sort of thing up?

I can buy WRT54G routers on eBay quite inexpensively. They seem to come in two flavors (see pictures below). Are they interchangeable for this purpose? Mine is the disc-shaped model without the protruding antennae.

Can you explain these things to me, preferably in words of one syllable or less? It's OK to laugh and make fun of my ignorance.

tanstaafl.

I know that Coax Ethernet exists but Wireless cards and Routers are much easier to find. Hmmm I guess I will have to experiment some boring night with this idea.

Another possibility: I'm having trouble understanding the building you live in. Is it all one home, split into two living spaces? Do you share the same electrical system?

If so, powerline would be the simplest way to go about things, and you wouldn't need to know a single thing about how to program two routers for WDS or repeating.

No the WRT54G2 and WRT54G are not interchangeable, they are a fair bit different. However it looks like the WRT54G2 can run dd-wrt (though only the micro limited functionality build), not that I've ever tried on the one* I manage for my parents.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT54G2

* it has been a pain in the arse as the wifi side of it repeatedly loses devices

I did have success using an Apple Airport to extend a signal from a WRT54G, not certain if it will work with a G2 though. No custom hackery or firmware required, all I did was this (in the Airport setup). Apple officially only supports this between their own products (as there is no official interoperable standard for this yet), so YMMV.

Can I assume you know what the SSID of the wireless network generated by your WRT54G2 is, and what the WEP or WPA key is? If so, that is what you need. Basically, your WRT54G2 is defining the specs of the network you want to propagate, and where it takes internet connectivity from is not relevant. You want to simply extend the reach of the wireless network signal you already generate.

To this purpose, you need a signal repeater. A signal repeater is easily obtainable by using a DD-WRT firmware (which offers repeater functionality) on compatible hardware (namely, WRT54G). So, I would suggest you buy off eBay a WRT54G (and not G2, which seems to be less compatible with DD-WRT), and install DD-WRT firmware in it.
DD-WRT is in fact an alternative firmware that can be installed on many Linksys (and other brands) routers to obtain more features.

So, get a WRT54G, download DD-WRT, update the router firmware from the proper firmware update page within the router web interface, reboot, and you now have a completely new web interface with more features.

Among those features, locate the signal repeater one, and, if I remember correctly, you should be able to enter parameters of the wireless network generated by your WRT5G2 router (SSID, WEP, probably channel used), so that the WRT54G+DD-WRT can pick it up and propagate it to the apt below you.

Now, while the above may be correct conceptually, I can't remember the menu structure of DD-WRT, and I may be forgetting some steps in configuring the repeater. I'd like to give you a more step-by-step guideline, but I don't have DD-WRT here.

In any case, I hope you now have a better idea of what to do.

I use a WRT54G with Tomato firmware (not DD-WRT) and currently it works great. It also has the repeater feature, so you may use Tomato as well.

For the second WRT54, you really, really, really, want a WRT54GL model. That's the only one that you can safely assume will do everything.

In this case, the ideal setup would be to configure both routers for something called WDS, assuming your existing unit has that capability(?).

But failing that, the new WRT54GL you acquire can be upgraded to DD-WRT firmware, and then set up as a universal repeater. In that mode, it will do the job nicely, with zero changes required to the existing setup.

By the way.. ignore everything you read anywhere about how to install DD-WRT. The standard instructions are hopelessly complicated for some oddball reason.

Do this instead: install Tomato firmware from the web GUI's Upgrade Firmware screen. Reboot the router and it will come up in Tomato mode. Normally, this is good enough, but Tomato doesn't have universal repeater functionality. So now, use the Web GUI again to install DD-WRT in a single-step.

Trust me, this is way simpler and more fool-proof than the recommended installation for DD-WRT.

If you choose to go this kind of route, then post some more, and we (collectively) will talk you through the nitty-gritty.

Or I could pre-configure a WRT54GL to "just work" and mail it to you. Seriously. I have a few on the shelf here that I got for $35+$5ship+tax each.

Cheers

Mark, that's pretty close to the best price I see on eBay for that. I will be happy to take advantage of your offer. But... will the shipping costs to Mexico be prohibitive? Oh, wait, never mind, you will be shipping it to my mail forwarder in Laredo, Texas, who will then bring it to me in Mexico. And that cost will be, well, not prohibitive, but expensive. I have to pay basic transportation cost (90 pesos) plus 50% of the assessed value of the package. Fortunately, in the absence of an actual invoice, they will accept my valuation. A used router is probably worth, what, about $15?

I'll send you a PM to work out payment and shipping details.

Thank you for the offer. I'm sure it will save me hours of hair-pulling type-2 fun, not to mention saving a lot of work for the bbs people who would have to try and explain to me how to set it up.

tanstaafl.

Awesome. I was looking at installing either Tomato or DD-WRT on my WRT54GL -- I want proper local DNS (e.g. dnsmasq) w/o needing a full-blown server. I was put off by the seemingly insane amount of warnings on the DD-WRT site. I'll try your way instead.

Navigating through DD-WRT's site always pushes me back over to Tomato. It's the most confusing mess of a site.

Plus, Tomato's admin screens are so much nicer to look at

Yeah, one can then just toggle back and forth between Tomato and DD-WRT using the web-gui Firmware Upgrade screens.

It is recommended to also use the web gui to wipe the flash "NVRAM" parameters before and/or after each back-and-forth switch, especially when DD-WRT is the new thing being installed. Tomato is less fussy.

And really you should consider Tomato if there's a version that runs on your router. It has a deceptively powerful AJAX GUI that makes it appear very simple, while still having just about all of the important features, including dnsmasq.

But no multiple-SSIDs, and no universal-repeater.

Cheers

Yes, and I have to correct my previous statement that Tomato did have it. Sorry for the confusion. You do need DD-WRT for that.

This message is being posted from Doug's new wireless repeater, which is connected over wifi to a second, temporary WRT54 that I have configured identical to what he currently has in Mexico.

Seems to work.

Had to use DD-WRTv24SP1 rather than the more recent SP2 series.

Cheers