Pace 4111N WiFi coverage

[fmc]

I am writing about another Fusion ADSL2 customer's site. It's a building with two rooms full of books on cases and in boxes. There's a Pace modem near one corner, both of the smaller room and the building, and it's being the WiFi AP. Don't want to move the Pace modem too far as it is where the phone line enters the building.

Books and boxes are made of paper, book cases are made of wood and metal. Walls are made of wood and metal too. There are people and they move around. It's an interesting environment for WiFi and we have had some problems with WiFi coverage for smartphones and tablets on the far side of the building, in the larger room. Then there's a monthly book sale and then there's more people in the building and moving around. We'd like to accept credit cards during the sale, and are experimenting with that using a mobile device with a reader attachment. I gather this was tried during last month's sale and some hilarity ensued with the mobile device being walked across the room to a place where the coverage was good enough.

I've done some things that have helped, mostly turning off an adjacent Belkin router/AP left over from the days when we had phone and DSL from SBC/ATT and switching to the Pace modem as AP. Results vary: it works better for me and the people who said it wasn't working now say it works. I put this down to the Pace modem being a better AP than the old Belkin. We haven't been through another sale day yet so don't know how it will work during that arrangement of WiFi attenuators.

I've also thought about elevating the Pace modem to get it above most of the shelved books, which could get it a better RF view of the farther reaches. That's made me think about its shape and what effect that has on the shape of its WiFi coverage: could I get better coverage of the areas I want to cover through the simple expedient of turning the modem to face a particular direction? Anybody know?

A WiFi repeater is certainly possible. It would be another thing. I tried to get a Buffalo AP (WHR-HP-G54) with Tomato to play that role with the old Belkin AP without success. Not sure it's a good match for the Pace which can do 802.11n.

[Guest]

I've also thought about elevating the Pace modem to get it above most of the shelved books, which could get it a better RF view of the farther reaches.

I'd think that would be the easiest thing to try without moving it away from the phone connection, even if you only put it on a temporary shelf/platform for testing.

As for the radio pattern, my understanding is the signal spreads out as a mostly flat 'plate' that is thinnest at the Wifi access point and gets thicker the further away it spreads. (I could be wrong about that so double-check with others.) If so, the access point should be kept in its normal orientation (ie. as depicted in sales and support illustrations) rather than resting on its side or attached to the wall at a non-standard angle.

(Some of the earlier Wifi routers came with wall-mounting brackets that oriented them sideways, but that may have compromised the signal spread for the sake of easier installation. Alternately, they might come with movable external antennae to compensate for the device's orientation.)


If elevating the Pace doesn't solve the problem, it sounds like you'll either have to move it to a more central location or add an extender access point to cover the other areas.

[fmc]

As for the radio pattern, my understanding is the signal spreads out as a mostly flat 'plate' that is thinnest at the Wifi access point and gets thicker the further away it spreads. (I could be wrong about that so double-check with others.) If so, the access point should be kept in its normal orientation (ie. as depicted in sales and support illustrations) rather than resting on its side or attached to the wall at a non-standard angle.

Thanks. The Pace modem in its normal orientation is a vertical slab, which I am OK with, but am wondering if the 'plate' is an ellipse or has lobes relative to the slab's orientation and whether I could improve coverage in this building by turning it so it faces in a particular direction, e.g. so the Sonic logo faces toward Santa Rosa or something.

I did try putting the Pace modem atop something at about 2m height. That put one of the larger side surfaces against the wall (similar to what I might expect of a wall-mount kit if one existed) and didn't do anything particularly observable about signal strength in the weaker reaches.

[Guest]

I am writing about another Fusion ADSL2 customer's site. It's a building with two rooms full of books on cases and in boxes. There's a Pace modem near one corner, both of the smaller room and the building, and it's being the WiFi AP. Don't want to move the Pace modem too far as it is where the phone line enters the building.

You can probably make an extension to the antenna.