AirPort Extreme and concrete ceilings?

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Level 1

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AirPort Extreme and concrete ceilings?

Dear all,

I wonder about the signal of an AirPort Extreme passing also one (or better two) concrete ceiling(s) in our new house. We plan to place an AirPort Extreme on the ground floor but would like to use Wi-Fi also on the 1st and 2nd floor. Does anybody of you have any experiences in this regard? As regards the 2nd floor would it be a possible sollution to add another AirPort Express on the 1st floor which would extend the Wi-Fi area to the 2nd floor?

Thx in advance,

Marc

AirPort Extreme-OTHER

Posted on Jan 23, 2013 1:16 AM

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Answer 1

Bob Timmons

Level 10

187,346 points

Jan 23, 2013 7:03 AM in response to mse_GER

This is one of those types of questions where the answer unfortunately will be that you will not know how well the AirPort works until you try it out in your home.

If the AirPort Extreme will not provide a strong enough signal upstairs (I would be surprised if much signal makes it upstairs), adding another AirPort on the first floor will not provide much help. In other words, if the Exteme's signal cannot penetrate the ceiling, the signal from the Express will not either.

If this were my new house, I would be planning to run an Ethernet cable from the location of the AirPort Extreme to the location where more wireless signal will be needed on the second floor.

If it is not possible to run the Ethernet cabling, a pair of Ethernet powerline adapters might be able to send a signal through the AC powerlines in the home. These products are "iffy", so make sure that you understand the store's return policy before you buy in case you need to try different models....or they simply will not work.

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Answer 2

Jan 23, 2013 6:55 AM in response to mse_GER

Marc,

The concrete floors will be very tough on your wi fi signal, especially when you consider that they are probably going to be reinforced with steel. If you want to extend the range wirelessly that is going to be a problem, in my opinion. If you extend the range of your wi fi system by hooking up the additional devices by ethernet cable, that will work, but you'd need to run cabling between floors. Not a happy prospect.

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Answer 3

edex67

Level 4

3,255 points

Jan 23, 2013 7:45 AM in response to wuzradioman

"You'd need to run cabling between floors" - Not necessarily. Powerline adapters could easily do the job. However, I agree with the rest of your post. Concrete floors don't work well with WiFi.

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Answer 4

mse_GER Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 23, 2013 7:50 AM in response to wuzradioman

Thanks for your answers! We are just in the stage of planning the electronic installations in our house whose construction is still in a quite early stage. We are therefore in the position to add ethernet connections to the upper floors. If I understand you correctly we should do so in order to have a fall back szenario when realizing that the Airport Extreme signal is not sufficient for using WiFi upstairs.

Two further questions on this:

- When using ethernet for bringing the signal to the 1st and 2nd floor, how will I transmit the signal on these floors? Can I connect other Airport Express' to the ethernet on the floors and use these as some kind of access points? Or can I simply use other (cheaper) access points from another manufacturer.

- Will it be possible to access an external HDD connected to the Airport Extreme if using a combination of ethernet and other Airport Express or access points?

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Answer 5

Bob Timmons

Level 10

187,346 points

Jan 23, 2013 8:05 AM in response to mse_GER

Can I connect other Airport Express' to the ethernet on the floors and use these as some kind of access points?

Yes

Or can I simply use other (cheaper) access points from another manufacturer.

Yes, although the "savings" in terms of money may be offset by the potential difficulites of configuring devices from different manufacturers to work together effectively.

Setup using Apple access points will literally be automatic in minutes. It will not be nearly as easy using devices from other manufacturers unless you are experienced wth this type of configuration.

Will it be possible to access an external HDD connected to the Airport Extreme if using a combination of ethernet and other Airport Express or access points?

Yes

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