I have extremely weak to no cell signal in my basement. I’ve planned to buy a RUTX50 together with an external antenna to provide WiFi internet connectivity in my basement.
Could you recommend which kind of antenna suits the best and whether it’s possible at all to get 4G/5G connectivity from your experiences?
The light shaft is approx. 2.5m deep. The shaft itself has an approx. footprint of 0.8m x 0.6x. The material is concrete perhaps with iron incorporated. On top is a metallic grid to cover the opening.
My idea was to buy an appropriate external antenna, which I place very close to the top of the light shaft. And try to squeeze the antenna cable through my window in the basement.
What kind of antenna do you recommend? Has a 4x4 Mimo or 2x2 Mimo any adventage over a single one?
Are these cables usually flexible enough to be bent a bit to be squeezed through a window?
The image comes very close to my situation, but is just an example I found.
An alternative I had in mind was, only using WiFi. My apartment is in the 1st floor and I could place a WiFi access point close to my window. But then I need another access point with an external antenna to do the same as mentioned before. Would this be the better (more stable, faster) solution? For this case, what kind of access point and antenna would you recommend?
My solution 1st floor ↔ basement: Powerline
This is to encrypted ‘bridge’ down your (home) network down to the basement via electric installation in your building.
Super cheap and fully enough if you don’t plan to build up a data center in the basement
Ah, I have to mention, the basement and apartment are disconnected. It’s the same building (three-story building with 6 apartments), but the basement consists of multiple compartments.
The power line is separated from those in the apartment. Separate circuit switch board (not accessible) and separate electric meter.
I’m not up-to-date with the newest generation of Powerline, but in the past this was not possible.
As for electric installations - you will almost never know in advance if Powerline will work across circuit switch boards. Also strongly depends on the age of that installation and how it was done.
In my case it (luckily) does work.
I just ordered one Powerline set for testing, it worked like a charm, so I kept it.
Connecting my e-charging wallbox for my car with it.
Separate circuit switch board.
I gave it a try with a cheap Powerline adapter, just to test. To my surprise, it’s really working. Paired the devices in my apartment, went to the basement and surprise… network has been established immediately.
I used a TP-Link PL-PA 7017, a rather cheap one. The performance isn’t that good. Having both adapter side by side, an internet speed test only give around <100Mbps (with a regular wired connection I have around 500-700Mbps). In the basement, the performance drops to 25Mbps on one power-outlet (I guess same phase) and 5-9Mbps on another power outlet (I guess another phase).
Is this kind of performance degradation in real life range, or rather a bad Powerline adapter?
At the end, having stable 25Mbps is actually enough, but more is always welcome.
