Hi I’m new to networking. What distance would an access point cover ? Will an AP on the main floor of a house get coverage in basement or second floor. Roughly how far apart should access points be to get full coverage? Sorry for the newbie questions. I plan on getting some AP’s to experiment at my own house.
Thanks
That’s a tough question because there are so many variables (walls, pipes, water, etc). I would say it is safe that an AP would cover somewhere in the range of 800-1000sqft in a new construction home. Again this depends highly what’s inside your walls and the construction overall.
Agreed^. And to go further, the material that the walls (for example) play a role as well. 2x4s and drywall won’t attenuate the signal as much as brick and mortar. Brick and mortar won’t attenuate as much as steel reinforced cinder block.
My rule of thumb is 1000sqft per AP for solid range of both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Although 5GHz will always penetrate obstructions worse than 2.4GHz just due to RF physics. It’s also noteworthy that the Pro has 3dB additional output power, doubling your range. This may not be advantageous in all environments because you run into the hidden node problem.
TL;DR on hidden node is when the client device can “hear” the AP but the AP can’t “hear” the client device. Analogy: picture an empty convention hall, no obstructions, nothing. Two people could be on opposite ends of the hall and be able to carry on a conversation. Now let’s introduce some noise/interference/attenuation/etc. Now it’s a crowded hall, thousands of people. You give one of those two original people a bullhorn. The person on the other side of the hall can hear the person with the bullhorn, but the person with the bullhorn can’t hear the other person because they don’t have anything to amplify their voice. The person with the bullhorn is a high powered AP, the person without is your typical client.