Getting meshed up

Living in a double-storey house can be a real pain when trying to extend a WiFi connection throughout the place. My problem lies with the modem and router which are upstairs in the living area. When I first moved into this neighbourhood in Bukit Mertajam and applied for an internet line way back in 2004, all the technician did was throw the cable across the rooftop from the backlane and feed it through a ventilation gap to the living area, which was centrally located on the upper floor of the house. Straight down and into the modem and router.

Upstairs, my wireless equipment—laptops and mobile phones—had excellent WiFi reception. But because of the house layout, concrete floor and brick walls, reception downstairs wasn’t always great. Mostly okay, but sometimes my wife would complain about poor connectivity when working downstairs. The smart television? It was fine—not excellent, but good enough. We could manage Netflix and YouTube, and I could still enjoy Spotify and Tidal.

Late last year, I chanced upon a ZDNet article about how to get wired connections throughout the house using existing coaxial cable outlets. In some old houses, those outlets were originally meant for TV connections in every room, but apparently, the coaxial cables could also carry internet signals, thanks to a technology called MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance). Sounded interesting, but the problem was, I didn’t have any coax outlets in the house. So it was a nice idea, just not one I could use.

Meanwhile, I was still stuck with acceptable—but not great—WiFi reception downstairs. Then it occurred to me: a mesh router might be the solution. Lucky for me, I found one that was compatible with my existing router. I paired the two units, moved the mesh unit downstairs, and voilà—my wife’s not complaining anymore! Even better, the WiFi reception on the smart TV improved, and those annoying Netflix lags are gone. Not to mention, the WiFi outside the house and in the kitchen is now excellent.

Why didn’t I think of this earlier??

Meanwhile, here is an addendum to this story. If a mesh router isn’t a ready solution, homeplugs might be an alternative. Also known as powerline adapters, they use a home’s existing electrical wiring to create a wired network connection. These come in pairs—small devices that plug into electrical outlets. I don’t know the technical details of how they work, but the setup is pretty straightforward. The first homeplug connects to the modem or router via an Ethernet cable. It then injects the internet signal into the home’s electrical wiring. The second homeplug, plugged into a different electrical outlet elsewhere in the house, picks up this signal and provides an Ethernet port for devices like computers, gaming consoles, or smart TVs. The attractive part? You can add more homeplugs in different locations to extend network access throughout the house. All sounds rather cool—but since I’m already meshed up, a homeplug network is moot for me.