WiFi

4 parent questions ▼

Parent Q&A

Select any title to view the full question and replies.

  • Wifi-knowledgeable person wanted (connecting ADU to main house)

    –
    Sep 3, 2021

    Hi, we have a backyard cottage, and would like to use our Comcast wifi in the cottage as well.  I understand there are various ways this can be done, and we would like to hire someone who can assess our situation and install the system that would work best.  Can you recommend someone for this type of work?  Thanks. 

    Sep 3, 2021

    I would recommend LMI. They are a local, Berkeley based company and they can help you figure this out.  They came to our house a couple of years ago because we wanted to fully wire the house.  Their technician toured the house with me and patiently answered all of my questions and brainstormed multiple ways to accomplish my goals for internet service.  They also presented options that involved wireless.  You can find them on yelp.  Good luck!

    Sep 8, 2021

    We have an 1896 Victorian with thick, plaster walls, which wifi doesn't like, and my office is in the old carriage house in the back of our big lot, so at least 30ft from the house and I use a Linksys Velop system I bought from Costco and set up myself.  I have three nodes around the house and one in my office, which were not cheap, and I had to upgrade when Covid hit to maintain speeds in my office, but it's been good since then.  

    Sep 9, 2021

  • Internet / extension coverage of house/ADU

    –
    Jun 27, 2021

    Hello! We are struggling to get our internet to work at the back of our house. Our house had an addition put on to the back (with a bedroom) in 2000. Therefore there is an exterior wall in the middle of the house. We suspect that this is part of the problem, and potentially people who have an adu where they have internet coming from the primary house would be able to provide advice on a good extension or other technique to get the internet to cover a large portion of the property. We currently have an extender, but it seems to have spotty coverage and we often go for minutes or hours where we can't get good internet coverage of the back of the house, challenging for working at home. Thanks!

    Jun 27, 2021

    The best thing you could do is to run ethernet to the back part of the house. Nothing beats hard-wired internet.

    Alternatively get a wireless network system like Google Nest.

    Jun 30, 2021

    I switched from Comcast to Sonic and they installed an Eero “mesh” system. My rear office is beautifully served and I plug my work laptop right into the remote mesh device and have >200bps back there. I, too, tried a plug-in extender which helped but mot much. Good Luck!

    Jun 30, 2021

    I have an ADU in my backyard and I got it to work great with a google mesh system. I had to buy 3 “points”—They’re $60 each so I initially tried to get away with one based on the square foot range stated by google. But I guess because of the exterior walls, I needed one at the front of my house (where it plugs in), one at the back, and one in the ADU. Works great, I use the ADU as my office and have no issues with zoom calls, downloads, etc. 

    Jun 30, 2021

    Hi,

    we tried extenders too but it didn’t work well. I highly recommend a mesh system. We use google mesh (now nest?)and we live in a duplex and share wifi. 

    Jun 30, 2021

    You just need a mesh system like Eero - we have a longer, older house and it works really well for us - good luck!

    Jun 30, 2021

  • Wi fi extender or mesh network for ADU?

    –
    May 8, 2021

    Hi all, Wondering if anyone has recommendations for a device that would allow us to share wifi with the cottage in our backyard. Seems like these extenders are designed for larger houses rather than separate structures but wondering if anyone has experience with it working in a backyard cottage. Lot is only about 4500 sq feet total, so the distance from house to cottage is pretty short. Thanks! 

    May 8, 2021

    Hi, when the pandemic started it became immediately clear that our  WIFI system wasn't going to work. I invested in the Amplify system https://www.amplifi.com/amplifi-hd

    it extends from the middle room of my 1300 sqft house to my driveway where i have a trailer as my office. There I am able to Zoom with perfect clarity! I bought the whole system and a new modem at Best Buy.

    May 12, 2021

    We used Eero Pro 6s for this type of thing and they worked well. You may need to buy extra in order to place one at the closest point of each building.

    May 12, 2021

    Not exactly what you asked, but we were in a similar situation, switched to Sonic (without an extender), and the issue went away. We were originally using Comcast. 

    May 12, 2021

    We too have a backyard cottage. We never found an extender that was able to work through the walls and distance. Ultimately we found we either have to pay for to pay for 2 accounts to have 2 modems or run an eithernet cord outside. I am curious if anyone has found an extender that works well enough as we haven't tried in a while.

    May 12, 2021

    We have an Eero that extends our home's wifi to our pool house. Got it at Costco awhile back. We just plugged one extension into the wall closest to the pool house and plugged another to an outlet in the pool house that was situated nearest the main house. There is a main unit and three plug-in extenders. The wifi isn't perfect in the pool house because it's on a lower level than the house, but I'm happy we're getting anything down there without running wires. I'm sure your experience will be much better.

    May 12, 2021

  • WiFi service while keeping landline

    –
    Mar 4, 2020

    I’ve had Sonic for home internet service (DSL) for many years and been very happy with them.

    As of July this year Sonic is changing to fiber optics which is faster- yay! - but it means I will loose my landline. I don’t want to loose my landline since the phone still works in a power outage and my 86 year old mother will only call me on my landline number.

    Any suggestions for WiFi only service not bundled that will allow me to keep my old fashioned landline? Are landlines doomed?

    thank you!!

    Mar 4, 2020

    By "landline" do you mean the old fashion ATT-provided service or the voice service provided by Sonic? I switched my voice service to Sonic from ATT, and I was able to transfer my old ATT landline number to my Sonic voice service. It works great. People calling you won't notice a difference.

    As far as your landline working during a power outage, if you're talking about Sonic voice service, are you sure there would be a difference with Sonic fiber? I've attached my Sonic-provided device to an uninterruptable power supply, and both my Internet and voice service work fine.

    Mar 6, 2020

    We looked into this when we switched to Sonic's faster fiber-to-the node service a few years ago. The short answer: no, there aren't. The cheapest option we found was to pay AT&T for landline only, which at the time ran around $25 a month (mostly taxes and fees). Sonic's internet plan was only very modestly cheaper without the phone included (though they did have an option for that). We didn't bother. I think the previous poster's suggestion to attach an emergency power supply is probably your best bet for power outages.

    Mar 7, 2020

    I have both a landline and sonic. There is a phone number associated with my sonic account that I’m not using and I’m paying for but it’s not too much. There’s nothing with sonic’s service that requires you to give up your landline. 

    Mar 11, 2020

    If Comcast is available in your area, I have had my internet and landline phone service (as well as cable tv) with them for many years and have been very satisfied with the service. Years ago, I transferred my AT&T phone number to Comcast. Comcast customer service used to be terrible. They've responded to customer complaints and now have top notch service, both by phone and in person. Internet and phone go through an integrated modem/router provided by Comcast. The phone is NOT VOIP (voice over internet protocol), it is a true low-voltage landline. The customer can add a battery backup to the modem/router so that the landline functions in the event of a power outage.

    Mar 12, 2020

    Just switched my 85 yr MIL to Sonic fiber with phone.  She was paying over $85 to AT&T for landline phone server.  Unbelievable that AT&T still charges for toll and long distance charges.  I would stick with Sonic and buy a battery back-up. My MIL also has a cordless phone so we plugged that in to battery back-up as well.

    Here's a link for one for $45.  It will power a compuer for 35 mins.  But if you use it just to power the Sonic equipment and cordless phone it will last for many days if not a week.

    https://www.amazon.com/APC-Battery-Protector-Back-UPS-BE425M/dp/B01HDC236Q/ref=pd_sbs_23_t_1/140-5836034-5656418?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01HDC236Q&pd_rd_r=45b9dd82-9987-4953-ab63-d3feb0d8eeb5&pd_rd_w=jny6o&pd_rd_wg=Eizy1&pf_rd_p=5cfcfe89-300f-47d2-b1ad-a4e27203a02a&pf_rd_r=T6V4FXSNK39E0FKCJS6S&psc=1&refRID=T6V4FXSNK39E0FKCJS6S

    Mar 15, 2020