Improve Wi-Fi – Price per antenna

Improving Wi-Fi with Mesh

A Mesh network creates one big Wi-Fi signal with one and the same network name. Products such as mobile phones and tablets therefore never have to switch from one wireless network to another. With a Mesh Wi-Fi, switching between transmitters happens seamlessly, so you won’t notice a thing.

Our work includes importing the existing Wi-Fi data so you don’t have to reconnect each device, and installing the extra transmitters. For most homes, 3 transmitters will be sufficient to achieve full coverage.

Most homes in Spain are equipped with a Wi-Fi router obtained at the time of internet subscription, and often this is tucked away somewhere in a cabinet in the wall. Such positions are bad for overall Wi-Fi coverage and speed, and you will soon find yourself with a slow internet connection, and with hardly any reception outside. That’s why it’s always worthwhile to set up a Mesh network, which puts a Wi-Fi transmitter at your disposal in the three most ideal locations in the house, so that you can have really fast internet on your smartphone or tablet at any location.

What speed can you expect

The speed as it enters most homes in Spain depends on the connection. This can be via fibre optic, but what also occurs frequently in Spain is a dish connection with a main connection located further away. The speed of the incoming signal is between 600 and 1000 megabits with fibre optics, and between 6 and 100 megabits with a satellite connection, depending on the chosen subscription.

How to measure the current speed at a certain location

On your smartphone, you can download many applications that can test the internet speed. A much used app is speedtest. When you perform a test with this app, you will immediately see what your download and upload speed is. It won’t surprise you when we tell you that if you pay for a 600 megabit connection, this speed is only attainable wired, or wirelessly if you hold your phone against the router. This is caused by the poor quality wifi router that comes standard, and the position in which it is placed.

Pay for 600 megabits, and get only 30 megabits on your smartphone

When we do a speed test with our customers, we hardly ever come out higher than 30 megabits, while people pay for a 600 megabit line. It is precisely at the location where people often surf the Internet that the speed is low. Especially outside in the garden on your terrace, the speed quickly drops off. People are then tempted to increase their subscription to, for example, 1000 megabits in order to obtain an even higher internet speed at the source, i.e. at your router. People don’t think about the fact that 95% of the speed loss is caused by bad Wi-Fi routers/transmitters. So increasing your subscription to more speed is really useless! The problem lies in the Wi-Fi transmitters, or rather the lack of them in your home.

Multiple transmitters crucial for good Wi-Fi coverage

Wi-Fi has a very limited range that it can cover, and it makes a difference whether you live in a densely populated area, or in the countryside with fewer other Wi-Fi routers. The majority of wireless devices operate on the 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi frequency and there are only 11 to 13 channels available there. Because of the increased bandwidth, one router can already occupy 3 of these channels, so in reality there are only 3 channels to choose from without overlapping. Imagine you live in a street with 10 houses, this means 3 houses are already using the same Wi-Fi frequency. Not surprisingly, this quickly causes interference. Not to mention the amount of interference you can expect in an apartment building.

Expansion of Wi-Fi channels

For some years now, there has also been a 5 Ghz frequency band for Wi-Fi, which can be used by more luxurious devices such as smartphones. The advantage of these channels in this frequency range is that less use is made of them, and that there are several channels available so that you are less likely to overlap with the neighbours. Also, a higher internet speed is possible on this frequency. The disadvantage of the 5 Ghz band is that the range compared to the 2.4 Ghz band is less, so the Wi-Fi signal will die out even faster.

Advantage Mesh network

The Mesh networks we build always have only one network name. This way, the mobile device never has to switch from one network to the other, so you won’t be without internet for a second when you walk through the house. This network broadcasts on both the 2.4 and 5 Ghz bands. This means that your device automatically switches between the 2.4 Ghz band for a longer range, and the 5 Ghz band for a higher speed, depending on which frequency gives the best results at the particular location.

What speed can you expect with Mesh

With each Mesh device the full Wi-Fi speed is offered again as it would be from the provider’s router. If you pay for a 600 megabit connection, every transmitter in the Mesh network will broadcast this, whether you are on the ground floor or in your bedroom on the first floor, the speed from the transmitter will be the same everywhere. This is feasible if you use a dedicated or Ethernet backhaul. If you use a Wi-Fi backhaul, the speed depends on the distance between the transmitters and the hardware of the Mesh network.

What is a backhaul

A backhaul indicates how the connection is made between the transmitters in a Mesh network. If you have a Mesh set of three devices, one device is the router and the other two devices/transmitters are called satellites. If you only connect the satellites to the Wi-Fi sent from the router then this is called a Wi-Fi backhaul. There are Mesh systems that work on the basis of a backhaul with one 5 Ghz transmitter so that the bandwidth between the transmitters is shared with the wireless devices such as smartphones on 5 Ghz, and there are Mesh systems with two 5 Ghz transmitters.

What is a dedicated backhaul

With a dedicated backhaul, one 5 Ghz transmitter is dedicated to data transmission between the transmitters, and another 5 Ghz transmitter is dedicated to transmission to mobile devices such as smartphones. With a dedicated backhaul, the bandwidth of the 5 Ghz frequency is not shared in order to maintain the connection with the transmitters. The advantage of this is that an even higher internet speed can be achieved completely wirelessly.

Wat is ethernet backhaul

With an Ethernet backhaul, the connection between the router and the satellites elsewhere in the house is based on an Ethernet cable. This is the most stable connection and absolutely the highest speed can be achieved. The disadvantage, however, is that an internet cable is required between the router and the position where you want the other two transmitters in the house. In newly built houses in Spain, there is often a junction of cables in the distribution board, where the internet cables from the various living rooms and bedrooms converge. If you place a switch so that every room in the house has an internet signal coming out of the wall, the construction of an Ethernet backhaul mesh network is very simple. Just plug the internet cable from the wall in the bedroom into the satellite, supply power, and you’re ready to go after installing and running the Deco app settings. This way you can easily place your own Wi-Fi transmitter in every room for optimal coverage. Usually it suffices to place one transmitter / satellite on each floor.

Difference in hardware mesh network

There are Mesh systems that work on the basis of Wi-Fi 5, and there are those with the latest Wi-Fi 6 support. Which one you need depends on how many devices you want to connect simultaneously, the speed you want to achieve, and whether an Ethernet backhaul is available. In short it comes down to this: Wi-Fi 5 is for connecting 100 devices simultaneously, Wi-Fi 6 can connect 150+ devices simultaneously.

Wi-Fi 5

If you can make an Ethernet backhaul, and you don’t want to connect more than 100 devices at the same time, the cheapest version with Wi-Fi 5 will suffice, allowing you to achieve speeds between 1200 and 3000 megabits, depending on the Mesh equipment you choose. A 4K Netflix movie will use 25 megabits, and HD material only 6 megabits, so you can imagine that this is already excessive for a normal family.

If you do not have or cannot make an Ethernet backhaul, and therefore want to connect the satellites completely wirelessly, with a standard backhaul and a 600 megabit connection, you will achieve about 300 megabits on the satellites, which is the cheapest version. With 300 megabits, you can still watch 12 Netflix films at 4K resolution from the satellites.

With a dedicated backhaul, if the router receives 600 megabits, the speed at the satellites will also be the full 600 megabits, because the separate Wi-Fi channel ensures that nothing is lost at this speed. A Wifi 5 dedicated backhaul can handle up to 1200 megabits of throughput.

Wi-Fi 6

So from the above speed chart, you can see that Wi-Fi 5 networks are more than sufficient for the majority of people. Wi-Fi 6 can handle a maximum throughput of 1800 to 10,800 megabits in addition to the 150+ simultaneously connected devices. A dedicated backhaul can therefore have up to 5,000 megabits of bandwidth, reducing the need for an Ethernet backhaul. Please note that these devices are still much more expensive than constructing an Ethernet backhaul Wi-Fi 5 network.

The best-selling products

For Wi-Fi 5, the TP-Link Deco M5 is the best-selling with a maximum throughput of 1200 megabits. This model is more than sufficient for a normal-sized family.

For Wi-Fi 6, the TP-Link Deco X20 is the best-selling with a maximum throughput of 1800 megabits. The same brand also has an X60 with a throughput of up to 3000 megabits, and an X90 with a speed of 6000 megabits.

If we come to your house to improve Wi-Fi speed, we always measure the speed at several points in your house beforehand, so that we can clearly show you the speed gain once we have finished the installation.

Tip: A family with 3 Tablets and 3 IP televisions turned on simultaneously can already do everything in the house at an internet speed of 50 megabits with a Deco M5 set of 3 as we offer it.