I could use some advice on the best way to get wifi out of my Faraday cage of a stucco house. I'm not opposed to spending money and/or replacing my current routers if it will get me a better overall setup, so don't feel constrained in what advice you offer. Here's a diagram of my current setup:
http://i.imgur.com/PRdfkTi.png
I've got cat6 running through the house (black lines), and two Dlink DIR-655 Xtreme N routers on the top shelf of two closets which give me pretty decent wifi coverage throughout with a single SSID. Outside of the house, though, there's almost no signal, which I would like to change so I can sit in the yard on nice days with my iPad. I tried a couple of different wireless repeaters/extenders (ZyXel repeater, Dlink DAP-1320) in the house right up against the exterior wall, but they made virtually no difference in the signal strength in the yard.
So unless someone knows of a better way to get a signal through stucco, I'm thinking of running some cat6 outside and mounting an outdoor PoE access point. Running ethernet is doable, running power would be much harder. I thought about the Hawking HOWABN1, but the reviews have enough stories of the things dying or requiring frequent reboots to make me hesitant. Ubiquiti products look pretty solid, but I'm not sure exactly what I'd need. (Would something like the Ubiquiti UniFI AP Outdoor 2x2 MIMO work with my current routers, or would I need Ubiquiti routers as well?) Is there something else I should consider that I haven't thought of? I think something omnidirectional would be best, but I could live with a directional antenna if it fully covered the area marked with the X.
My current network has grown fairly organically and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was poorly designed in terms of throughput, so if starting over and designing it properly makes more sense than tacking one more device onto, please don't hesitate to say so. Thanks!
http://i.imgur.com/PRdfkTi.png
I've got cat6 running through the house (black lines), and two Dlink DIR-655 Xtreme N routers on the top shelf of two closets which give me pretty decent wifi coverage throughout with a single SSID. Outside of the house, though, there's almost no signal, which I would like to change so I can sit in the yard on nice days with my iPad. I tried a couple of different wireless repeaters/extenders (ZyXel repeater, Dlink DAP-1320) in the house right up against the exterior wall, but they made virtually no difference in the signal strength in the yard.
So unless someone knows of a better way to get a signal through stucco, I'm thinking of running some cat6 outside and mounting an outdoor PoE access point. Running ethernet is doable, running power would be much harder. I thought about the Hawking HOWABN1, but the reviews have enough stories of the things dying or requiring frequent reboots to make me hesitant. Ubiquiti products look pretty solid, but I'm not sure exactly what I'd need. (Would something like the Ubiquiti UniFI AP Outdoor 2x2 MIMO work with my current routers, or would I need Ubiquiti routers as well?) Is there something else I should consider that I haven't thought of? I think something omnidirectional would be best, but I could live with a directional antenna if it fully covered the area marked with the X.
My current network has grown fairly organically and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was poorly designed in terms of throughput, so if starting over and designing it properly makes more sense than tacking one more device onto, please don't hesitate to say so. Thanks!