Need DSL modem/router in basement but also need connectivity upstairs.

I'll try to explain this as simply and briefly as I can.

My parents' home is 2230 square feet on the main level and the basement is a separate 2230 square foot finished apartment. They finished the basement with a kitchen, two bedrooms and 1.5 baths plus den and rec room in case one of both of my grandparents ever needed to move in. They never needed it, so it has only been used by occasional guests. I am building a new house a few miles away from my parents and, since my dad and I will do a lot of the work and subcontract the rest, I want to be close-by and I expect it to take up to 10-11 months to finish it. During that time, I am going to live in my parents' basement. (Exactly where I dreamed I would be living at the age 40....)

Currently, my dad has the DSL modem/router in the upstairs office which is at the opposite end of the house from where my bedroom and den are located one floor below. I can't get a strong enough signal on a consistent basis the way things are set up now. I work primarily out of my home and regularly send large files to the main office and I am usually up against a firm deadline to have them submitted. So I need the fastest connection that I can get.

I want to move the DSL modem downstairs to my den area, but my dad uses it in the current location to connect his desktop via Ethernet since it doesn't have wireless capability. If I move the router downstairs, what is the most cost-efffective way for him to get a signal on his desktop upstairs? My first thought was to add a wireless adapter card to the desktop. It is a Dell Inspiron 530 (dates back to 2008, has a 'Conroe' C2D processor). My concern is that even if I do add the wireless capability, it still won't be able to get a strong enough signal from downstairs.

I also wondered about Powerline Networking. I must admit that I know very little about it, but could I accomplish what I need with it?

If there are any other ideas, I would really appreciate hearing them! Worst case scenario, I'll end up having a second DSL connection installed downstairs, but that would be $60/month that I'd rather not spend.

Thanks!

 

The way antennas on routers work you get good coverage on the level you are but poor vertical coverage.
See this as an example:


So it does not really matter if the router is on your dad's level or in the basement. Whoever is on the level without the router is going to suffer.

There are two and a half ways of dealing with this:

1. Powerline adapters as you've mentioned (that is a good idea but the quality of the connection will depend on quality or wiring and whether or not there is a circuit breaker in between smart-plugs)

2. Ethernet wire from the modem to the basement. It might not be pretty but the wire will surely be useful anyway in you new house and it's guaranteed to work.

2.5. Ethernet wire to the basement level and a router configured as access pint placed there. It has one advantage over the previous solution - all your devices like smartphones, laptops, tablets and so on will have internet access in the basement.

 

My dad is a mechanical engineer and he actually ran all of the wire and installed all electric plugs, switches and fixtures when they built their house in 1998. I remember it well because I came up on weekends (I lived in Atlanta, they live about an hour north) and helped him and my mom while they were building it. I expected to just spend days cleaning up construction debris and helping my mom with the landscaping. Instead, I learned how to help my dad run every inch of electrical wire in that 4,460 square foot house and helped him install the HVAC system also. I already knew how to cut and hang trim (and they have crown moulding in every room) so I got to spend plenty of time with a miter saw and nail gun. But they saved the best for last- the entire main level had genuine oak hardwood floors that were installed unfinished and had to have two to three layers of stain and three coats of polyurethane to finish them!

I don't think I visited for almost a year after we finally finished it and they moved in! But out of his my mom's two kids (me and my sister) and his three kids (I call him my dad but he's technically my step-dad), I'm the favorite. Besides, even though he is now 66 and mom is 60, they're both going to help do some things to save me a lot of money on my house.

Back to the electrical system, I know that we used copper wiring rather than tephe more commonly used (and cheaper) aluminum wire. I know that copper is a better conductor of electricity than aluminum, would the copper wiring also be beneficial for power-line networking? Also, I don't really understand what a smart plug is and for what reason you would or would not have a circuit breaker between them? The whole point of a circuit breaker is to interrupt current flow to prevent damage to a circuit if an overload or other fault is detected. Right? I suppose my confusion would be that I didn't realize there were situations where circuit breakers were optional. But then again, I don't know what a smart plug is either! =)

Seriously, though, would that smart plug question apply to a house built almost 17 years ago? And would it be the presence of absence of the circuit breakers between them that would be an issue in power-line networking?

Sorry for asking all these questions. I really appreciate your response being so detailed. I would really love it if the power-line solution would work. How long can an Ethernet cable be now without any problems or loss of connection speed? I may be mixed up, but I thought that Ethernet cable used to have limitations on length. Besides, if I had to run it from the upstairs modem location, my mom would die if I just tried to run it down the hall (under then baseboards) and then down the stairs to the basement. I'd have to find a way to run it up thru the wall and the basement has finished sheetrock ceilings, not drop-in tiles, so getting it thru the upstairs floor and thru the downstairs ceiling would be difficult, not to mention drilling holes in any floors, walls or ceilings would not go over well.

 

Smartplug is the same as powerline adapter - I should have been clear on that.
As for the circuit breaker - it's possible that each floor is a separate circuit and therefore has a separate circuit breaker so in case something happens the whole house does not lose power - just one floor. It's not a no-go if there is a circuit breaker in between the modem and where you are but that might limit the throughout.

I guess Ethernet wire is out of the question, so let's ignore this. Powerline should work though.

 

Can you run an Ethernet cable from the modem to near the area where you need better coverage and connect your own router to it?

That should give better coverage on the floor where it's needed.

I have a Netgear R7000 connected to a Time Warner ARRIS modem with a 20' CAT 5e cable.

 

There were starter kits as low as $37.99, but I didn’t cheap out. I went for one that had higher ratings on Amazon and paid $59.99. It’s also from a company that I know and like, TP-LINK. I have dual-band TP-LINK N600 router than has performed flawlessly for over a year. It’s kind of like my attachment to LG televisions, once I find something that works I stick with it until I have a reason to change. They adapters will be here today, so I’ve got fingers crossed!

BTW, both floors are one main breaker and one breaker box, so I don’t think that will be an issue.

I'll let you know how it works out and what kind of speeds I get via the power-line adapters. If it doesn't work out, I think my parents are going to their cabin in North Carolina next weekend. I will find a way to covertly run an ethernet cable wherever I need to. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? =)

Thank you again for taking the time to educate me on the matter! =)

 

I'm going to try the Power-line adapter first and see if I can achieve what I need that way. But I do need to have a contingency plan of some sort. This may sound like a stupid question, but I wonder if my TP-LINK combo DSL modem/router would work as just a router only to extended the range of the wireless by plugging it into the main modem and placing it somewhere on this level?