Universal kit: problems when "access point"

t177aa · Mar 7, 2011

Universal kit: problems when "access point"

Hello,

I have a special constellation due to existing connections/ISDN, which is why the router is in the basement (!), TV1 on the ground floor and TV2 on the 2nd floor (!). That’s why I bought the Swisscom universal kit - which also works perfectly with the EC. But the reception doesn’t extend to the 2nd floor.

Then according to [https://community.swisscom.ch/t5/Wissens Database-Internet/Universal-Connection-Kit-Use-as-quot-Repeater-quot/ta-p/6298/comment-id/16] (https://community.swisscom.ch/t5/Wissenskatalog-Internet/Universal-Connection-Kit-Use-as-quot-Repeater-quot/ta-p/6298/comment-id/16) reconfigured my 3 kits, the one on the ground floor now functions as an “access point”.

Now I have two things:

1. The TV1 on the ground floor (connected to the “Access Point” kit) no longer receives signals and reports “signal loss” (even though all the lamps on the kit are green).

As soon as I set all 3 kits back to “Auto” it’s ok again.

2. Thanks to the access point on the ground floor, the signal now comes to floor 1 (not before), but unfortunately not to floor 2. Does anyone have an idea? Can you buy an additional kit and place it as an AP on the 1st floor (they are very discreet)? Or do I have to lay a powerline or cable behind it? Thanks for a (favorable) suggestion).

Questions: How does the “access point” on the ground floor cause signal loss? Or is it because of the “Station” kit in the basement?

If that’s solved, what does it take to “serve” the 2nd floor, another access point? Or simply stronger channels than this Swisscom (Netgear) product?

Thank you for your support.

Stephen

semiconductor · Mar 7, 2011

Hello Stefan

The signal loss is very strange, it shouldn’t happen like that. Can you connect a notebook to the AP on the ground floor using a cable and see whether the notebook can then connect to the network without any problems? (Or any other device)

It is normal that the signal does not/never reach the 2nd floor. The cushioning of a normal ceiling is simply quite strong. The universal connection kit only transmits at 5GHz, so there is a physical limit. Whether Powerline works depends on how your house is wired for electricity. All that remains is to try it. Of course, you could in principle move from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor with another connection kit (e.g. Ruckus, there are only 2 in it or a universal connection kit). That could be a good thing. If I’m honest, with such an architecture pulling cables would be best, but if two kits don’t bother you, give them a try.

Greeting

t177aa · Mar 9, 2011

semiconductor

Hello semiconductor,

Thanks for your help. I’ll try it out with my laptop. But I have to hurry, because the “10-day return period” is about to expire - and the 300.- is too much for me just for EC supply, so I’d rather switch to Ruckus for EC and Powerline (Swisscom or competitors) for the 2nd floor (as you say, the limits of the universal kit have been reached anyway). The alternative of “pulling the cable” still remains, of course, but the current offers are in the 4-digit range, just for 1x cable UG/EG, 1x cable UG/OG2…., and that’s talking We haven’t heard of “cables throughout the house” yet.

Greeting

t177aa · Mar 9, 2011

[unknown]

Hello,

So, I tried out various constellations, with the following results:

UG: Auto, EG: Auto - Swisscom TV and Internet work (even if the network lamp on the EG kit is occasionally red and not green). However, I haven’t got HD switched on yet (we’re still measuring), so I don’t know whether that has any effect on HD. But ok for now.

UG: Station, EG: Access Point (the case described) - briefly a TV picture, freezes after a few seconds, then message “Signal loss”. However, under “Help” it says: no problem with the network. But there is no more picture. I can switch from channel to channel, but after 2-3 seconds the picture freezes. Laptop on kit has normal internet access, so it really only affects the TV signal.

UG: station, EG: car: no contact between kits.

UG: Car, EG: Access Point: no contact between kits.

I hope that the freezing has nothing to do with the current measurements, or does it? (no HD activated yet, possibly just a stream)

Do I have to wait until everything is fully activated?

Greeting,

semiconductor · Mar 10, 2011

t177aa

Hmmmmm

So the fact that no contact can be made if one is on auto and the other isn’t seems to be ok to me. The TV signal loss is ugly. I can’t really explain where this comes from when the laptop has no problems at all at the same time. I don’t know what is done with TV measurements, but I can’t actually imagine that it would be a problem.

But if the LED is red every now and then even in the “Auto” case, the connection is probably borderline anyway. HD could then become seriously critical. If you want to try it with Ruckus, be sure to get the 2.4 GHz (SD connection kit). This may work better. Then it may not be enough for HD. All that remains is to try it out and maybe wire it up as a last resort.

Sorry…

semiconductor · Mar 10, 2011

semiconductor

One last idea: Have you looked at the Netgear boxes among each other (and then configured them again in the EG AP and in the UG station)? Just to rule out that a box is defective… you never know 😉

And then something about the floor plan: Are the two boxes on the ground floor and basement directly above each other or distributed diagonally across the house floor plan? If there are a few walls in between the ceiling, the signal will have a difficult time. Draw a mental line between the two boxes and try to minimize the obstacles in between. That could help. The last thing you can try is to lay down one of the speakers to change the position of the antennas.

Tedious, I know, but that’s just WiFi 😉

Greeting…

t177aa · Mar 11, 2011

semiconductor

Hello,

Unfortunately, swapping kits with each other doesn’t help. TV on router ok, TV on “Station” ok", but TV on “Access Point” doesn’t work. “Try again” says that “Private Network” is ok, but then when you get the IP address you get an “X” Oh yes, the HD channels have now been switched on and they also work on “Auto”. I’m at my wits end now, I have no idea what the problem is since the kits aren’t enough for the 2nd floor anyway her now replace it and then try out the Ruckus (still the HD version, not the SD version probably) for the ground floor, and the Powerline version for the 2nd floor. Otherwise just spend (even more) money and have cables laid… .

Greeting,

WalterB · Mar 11, 2011

[unknown]

that’s why the router is in the basement (!), TV1 on the ground floor and TV2 on the 2nd floor

In your configuration, the first WLAN has to forward the signal from the router in the basement, the second WLAN on the ground floor has to forward the signal from the first WLAN and the third WLAN on the second floor has to forward the signal from the second WLAN.

In any case, if I understand correctly, there are two ceilings between the ground floor and the second floor and this is a special situation for WiFi.

With this configuration I also had a problem with the transfer of the WLAN signal from the second device to the third WLAN device.

Now I only use two WLAN devices, the one on the router and the second on the upper floor for the TV-Box.

The rest of the 3rd floor goes with a D-LAN (powerline) from the router to the 3rd floor.

Theoretically, if there are three WLAN devices, the first two should work as a WLAN bridge and the third as an extender.

Walter

Elefer · Mar 11, 2011

[unknown]

What is the distance from the access point to the station (as the crow flies between the two)? Are there more walls on this imaginary line?

You wrote that the signal should go from the basement to the ground floor. But are the access point and station placed directly on top of each other or at different ends of your house?

Since it sounds really strange that the auto setup works and the manual one doesn’t, I have another question about the configuration. During the manual configuration, did you assign both devices to be access points and stations? Not that you operate two access points.

Does the manual setup work if you have the manually configured access point in the basement and the station on the ground floor?

Greeting,

Elefer

t177aa · Mar 13, 2011

[unknown]

Hello Walter,

As already described, I have now decided to switch to Powerline for the 2nd floor, and have already done so successfully - just like you. Since the “access point” causes problems and only reaches the 1st floor anyway, it was too complicated for me to add more repeaters.

With the Powerline solution for the 2nd floor, a wireless connection remains on the basement/ground floor, which should be possible with the HDTV (Ruckus 7811/7111) solution. This means that the universal kit is no longer necessary (I’ll be returning it next week).

With the Powerline (Swisscom solution) I’m just wondering whether a Devolo or Netgear product also works (actually, I hope so), where I don’t just have 1x Ethernet on the receiver, but several Ethernets or also wireless (e.g. Devolo dLAN 200 AV Wireless N Starter Kit). Has anyone had any experience with this?

The Swisscom hotline couldn’t determine why my “access point” wasn’t working properly, despite three different experts.

Greeting,

t177aa · Mar 12, 2011

Elefer

Hello Elefer,

There is a distance of approx. 10m as the crow flies between the station (UG) and the access point (EG). The kit in the basement is next to a window, don’t know if that helps. But as the crow flies there is another wall next to the ceiling, and that is the one from the civil defense room, so it may be a little thicker.

As I said, if both kits are “auto”, then it works without any problems, despite the occasional red light on the ground floor. Even HD reception, no problem.

What doesn’t work is UG = “Station” and EG = “Aceess Point” (3rd kit completely off or “Station” doesn’t matter), and that’s because the access point doesn’t have an IP address for some reason (or no valid one). However, the access point provides Internet access, and it continues to deliver the signal to the 1st floor (this is not the case with “Auto”). However, the TV on the 1st floor also gets the message “Signal loss” and fails at the IP address step.

I have TV reception on the router itself and also on the “station” in the basement, but not on the access point.

I also tried resetting the router, kits and TV-Box, without success.

Since I have now gotten the powerline set and can surprisingly bring the TV signal from the basement to the 2nd floor (!) without any problems (including the HD signal), I don’t actually need the kit anymore. I will therefore return the universal kit and switch to HDTV Wireless (Ruckus 7811/7111) for the EC. It’s more expensive overall than the universal kit solution, but it delivers the result I need (router downstairs, TV1 on the ground floor, TV2 on the 2nd floor). And if Ruckus doesn’t work (which I hardly believe), then I’ll take a second powerline, or just lay a network UG - EG.

I just don’t know yet whether instead of Swisscom Powerline (only 1x Ethernet receiver), a Netgear or Devolo variant would also work, where you have wireless reception in addition to 4x Ethernet on the receiver. I would actually prefer it. has anyone ever tried this?

So, if anyone has an idea, you can still try it - but actually the Unversalkit solution is on the “death list” anyway because I can’t get to the 2nd floor with it, and I achieved that with Powerline.

Greeting,

Elefer · Mar 14, 2011

[unknown]

Unfortunately, your connection actually seems to be at the limit. But that’s not too surprising if your modem is in a civil defense room. You then have very well-insulating ceilings and walls. But it’s not entirely clear to me why the auto configuration works and the manual one doesn’t.

Have you tried using fixed IP addresses during manual configuration? (If you still want to do this, you should write down these addresses so that you know the addresses later to access the user interfaces. It should also be noted that there should be no duplicate IP addresses on the network).

However, since the wireless connection is at its limit, the Ruckus HD may not work either. Usually the universal connection kit has the better range.

Regarding the powerline devices: I can’t tell you whether devices from other manufacturers work because I haven’t tried them out. However, there are also a few things to consider. In addition to the different hardware (which can result in different performance), the main question is whether the other devices also properly support Swisscom TV (i.e. multicast transmission and prioritization). If you don’t want to watch TV on the 2nd floor, the other devices should work. You would have to test with TV whether they work. Or ask around here to see if anyone has experience with it.

Greeting,

Elefer

WalterB · Mar 14, 2011

Elefer

where I don’t just have 1x Ethernet on the receiver, but several Ethernet

You can connect an additional switch with several LAN ports to the D-LAN, which normally only has one LAN Anschluss.

I had already used the Zyxel PLA-400 v2 (starter kit) for the TV-Box, but they get warmer than the D-LAN from Swisscom.

One advantage of Swisscom D-LAN is that you can plug in additional power consumers directly into the Powerline and are therefore already connected via an internal filter.

Walter