Internet extenders, Repeaters vs. Powerlines vs. Mesh networks

low-def.

My wifi signal on the 5ghz channel usually hits 350 mbps in the room that the hub is in but the signal degrades to approx 20mbps when it goes upstairs and to the kids rooms at the back of the house.
Its not a big house, just old with thick solid walls. Virgin sent me some wifi boosters but they seemed to make the situation worse?? So i sent them back and planned to sort it out myself.
Noticed the TpLink Deco M4 3 pack on amazon for £114 so thought it might be worth giving it a go.

mickevh

5GHz Wi-Fi energy (the "signal" if you like) falls off with distance quicker than 2.4GHz and is curtailed by "stuff" (walls, doors, air,) to greater extent, so it's not unexpected that it does less well in "other" rooms. Whilst all Wi-Fi works best with unobstructed line of sight, it's more so for 5GHz.

It could also be that the antenna in your router/AP are oriented in a way that extends more horizontally than vertically - you could perhaps try experimenting with reorienting you router/AP, though it's something of a forlorn hope.

One of the complications of running multiple hotspots (cells) is that if they all use the same or similar radio channels, they can end up interfering with each other (called "co-channel interference" in the business) and actually make things worse. One of the ways large scale Wi-Fi system managers earn their money is in devising a "channel plan" so that neighbouring cells are tuned to different radio channels. Though a lot of enterprise systems automate this (and one hopes it's one of the "trickle downs" to SOHO mesh and "whole home " type systems, though I've not tested any.)

Channel planning can be a bit tricky in the 2.4GHz band as there are "only" (effectively) 3 channels available. Worse still if one uses the 40MHz "fat" channels availed in 802.11N. In all but the most trivial single AP deployment, I suggest not using "fat" "wide" "40Mhz" "20/40MHz" modes (however it's styled) in the 2.4GHz N if your kit offers the option. Sure, hits the top speed (halves it) but it gives you more non-overlapping radio channels to play with (3 of them) reducing the inter-cell interfence which paradoxically could improve throughput (speed) of the system as a whole.

In the 5GHz waveband there are many more radio channel (something like 20  at time of writing in Europe) and 5GHz channels can be even "fatter" - the AC protocol adds 80MHz and 160MHz to the 20/40MHz of N and 20MHz of A/B/G. Though to use all of the 5GHz channels, you need kit that implements something called DFS (to prevent interference with some RADAR) and not all cheapy kit does DFS, such kit may offer fewer 5GHz channels (my old N router only does 4 for example.)