General Chat

Yes, always problems with slow connections with telefonica in Tenerife. My OH has helped the situation where we stay by using a foil covered piece of card behind the router. In fact he has done it here too and it extended the distance the signal will travel. He got the insructions off the net.

It does also depend where exactly your router is. and which way it points.

"http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/wirelessproducts/f/wifirange.htm"

foobah

(a) range can be extended by using a simple and ez to build dish to as much as 1km depending on the weather and the router ; trees are not good

(b) many routers are compatible with DD-WRT software
Install this instead of the OEM software and 200-500m line of site is easy to achieved with no dish

(c) crank up the power using DD-WRT and again max signal distance can go up quite a bit, also much better performance with thick walls and so on. Technically this is illegal and a few routers block it in the hardware. However if you live in the middle of nowhere, have a farm or live within thick walls than nobody will notice.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index

(d) as a general rule routers which hide their aerials inside the box will not work as well as ones which have them on show. This ain't always so though.

(e) Apple have not implemented dhcp properly on mobile phones and HTC have made similar errors too. The error is building the phones to tech spec rather than long established industry practice. The result can be that some HTC & Apple phones will not work with some home/office routers . They are even less likely to work with corporate networks and some university systems.

My monthly, yes monthly, phone bill is abot 60-62 euros. Under 3 euros of this is calls as I use another company for this. The rest is charges. My bill does include local calls for free!! The cost of the line 17 euros something and ADSL Internet connection, 29.99 and 8 euros for 24 hour maintenance, which I am going to cancel. Plus IGIC (Vat) I am with Movistar ex Telephonica and it is SOoooo expensive but I don't have much choice.

Be careful when using wifi at coffee bars, cafes and so on, free or not.
Due to the terrible security on wi-fi routers it is not very difficult for others to run software which can pick things up from other computers sharing the same connection, especially windows laptops.

In some countries it is not unknown for the routers to be hacked in order to make this easier, sometimes with the connivance of the establishment.

Smart phones, tablets and macs are a bit better.
Turn off bluetooth when not in use.

If you must use a windows laptop in a cafe etc then create a different profile without any admin privileges for cafe sessions.

Although free wifi connection at cafes and even Tescos is common in northern Europe the idea has been slow to catch on further south, possibly because residential connections are slow and expensive. Spain would have done better to build fewer airports and high speed railway lines and sort out its internet. Too late now.

I am not sure which is worse, BigPond or Telefonika. For those who have used neither they make TalkTalk look good.

Wow, I find that quite amazing.

Many places here in Oz (particularly coffee shops) actually advertise FREE Wifi :-D

No I realised that Lady Scozz although it is a national sport here to find out passwords so that you can use other people´s broadband.....mainly because it´s so expensive here.
Most people use the local bars & hotels, but they have got wise to it now & change their passwords every few days.
I´ll give this a week or so to see how it works out.

I didn't say "find out what your neighbours use" so that you could use theirs.... I meant to find out which system works best in your area.

I live waaaaaaaay out in the sticks, not near any major city, so it took a while to find a good connection. Our mobile 'phone reception also also bad, we live in a black hole.

:-D

Thanks for that Rollo.
I have a friend coming over in a few weeks. Might ask her to bring a decent router with her.
Dont get me started on the subject of Telefonica. :-|

Wifi signals only work line-of-site. The signal is not uni directional but bounces around off walls doors and anything else around so that eventiually the signal gets to the next room and so on.

High frequency signals are better at bouncing around 'cos there is more signal but are not usually up for more than 20m. If you don't need the wifi signal for a smart phone ( hardly any of them do 5 Ghz ) then set your router to 5 Ghz so long as yr laptop can use this frequency. If not Belkin sell an excellent USB wifi key that does dual band 2.6/5 Ghz fine.

Spanish ISPs tend to ship rubbish routers with poor wi fi power. Telefonika are fond of low spec Netgear boxes.

I binned mine and brought one out from England. It works just fine, took the setup from the old one .

If you post yr router make and model I'll let you know its potential ( or not ).

You´re right Errol & I don´t think the landlord would be too impressed.
The router came with an ethernet cable but I don´t have a desktop, so am just connected to my laptop,The idea being that I can use it wherever I want in the house, because OH gets a bit fed up if he´s watching TV in Spanish & I´m watching it in English on the laptop in the same room.
I know my friend is able to do this in her flat without being connected through a desktop.
just don´t understand why I can´t.

I think the OP wanted to be able to move around - that would mean an awful lot of drilling, holes and wires.

By far the easiest fix is to just use an ethernet cable - you can get aq 5m cable new on eBay for about £ 5. Just plug one end into the computer the other into the router. Keep it neat with duck tape, carpet tape or similar.

It takes about 5 min max to drill a big enough hole through a brick wall.

Thanks all.
My contract is with Orange & it was only installed this week. I have a much better signal strength from the local bar which is at least 700 meters away, although obviously I don´t use it (Don´t have their password anyway.)
Think part of the problem may be that at this time of the year, all the bars & hotels are offering WiFi to their guests & the system is getting overloaded. After all, we are on a tiny island stuck in the middle of the Med.
The other thing is that the patio has 4 meter high brick walls. Marvellous for privacy but obviously not good for internet reception.
I´ll persevere for a while & see what happens.

As KTLC says it is illegal to use another person's wifi connection without their permission. Most contracts do not allow this. It is easy to see who is using yr connection by opening the router control page which is also where you can change the channel and so on.

Very few smart phones / tablets support 5 Ghz and very few routers allow 2.6 & 5 GHz at the same time so that in practice 2.6 is the most widely used. 5 Ghz os better where you have thick walls etc 2.6 for distance.

There are lots of gadgets for smart phones which let you see what channels for wifi are in use near you - auto often works best if not fix the channel, 11 often works well.

These objects will kill wifi signals: microwave cookers while they are on, old type CRT tv, large fridge freezer, some gamestations ( but only the neighbours will notice).

b/g standard is for ancient kit all modern routers ( 4 years old and less ) support n. There is no such thing as a 3G or 4G router.

The performance of routers varies a lot. The best ones for distance are Buffalo Air Routers. It is ez to get one in good nick on eBay for £ 20.

The quick connect feature for visitors is a big security hole and should normally be disabled if you live in an urban area.

The max signal strength is locked into the router and set by law in most administrations. However some routers allow the installation of DD WRT software and then you can increase signal strength to whatever you want. The alternative approaches are to get another cheap router and configure it as an access point OR use wifi plugs which go into the power socket and use electricla system for distribution.

good luck

It is actually illegal to use another persons WiFi connection without their permission, although I don't know how anyone would realise you are using it.

Mine has a password to enable visitors to connect to it, I can use my laptop anywhere in the house or garden luckily
:-)

Do you know what grade/size is your WiFi router G or N or other. Most households use one or the other.(There are other sizes and now 3G) They have different frequency and different data rate /range. The beam range can depend on the type of material the walls are made of such as solid walls. Other items can block the beam as well such as water tanks and I think mirrors.

My N router is on the second floor - I can use my laptop up and down the 3 levels. It works outside the front door but not out the back on the table near my shed which is about 17.5 mtrs from the building (solid brick walls).

I know need an additional compatible range booster but they are not cheap so it is on hold at the moment.
:-)

Find out what your neighbours use.

Our neighbours don't use wifi, so we had to fiddle around a bit........ eventually found " twodogs " is best in our area. (what an awful name!)

I don't use a laptop, the problem was getting books to a kindle.

:-)

It definitely should have a wider range than that I know mine does. As Cynthia said Errol will be able to advise when he´s online.

No doubt eRRol will advise when he comes online. :-D


My router is upstairs and I can use my laptop all over the house....in fact, I think I've used it in the garden a couple of times......hope you get sorted.

Thanks Rose. Will do.