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Single room wifi solutions
EvilTB
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
Hey! I'm pretty new here. I recently got a room in a house, for college, and they do not have wifi... I was thinking of getting my own router for the room. Is that overkill? are there any other (possibly cheaper) solutions? Any advice would be great! Thanks!
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Where are you located, roughly? Don't want exact street address, but city/state/country may help.
Do they already have a broadband internet connection wired to your room, or are you planning on connecting using a 3/4/5g connection? Or maybe you're planning on setting up a contract with the local ISP to provide internet access? If you're looking at setting up a new ISP account, do you have a cable connection to your room (assuming it's a cable internet provider)?
How many devices do you have that you're planning on connecting? How do you feel about sharing the connection?
Hope this helps!
If the room is wired for an internet connection then it's going to be really easy to grab a hub or a wireless router to connect a couple of systems into. If it's wired for cable then it should be pretty straight forward to talk with your local cable provider or ISP to get an internet connection set up. They should be able to rent you a modem which (depending on how long you're there) may be cheaper than buying your own.
If the room isn't wired for an internet connection or cable (which seems likely if they don't have a wifi network, wiring a room with cat-5 or cable is a lot more work than plugging a wireless router in and configuring it), then you're looking at a lot bigger investment to get internet there if you're looking for a local area/wireless connection. Probably more of an investment than you want to make on a room you're only in for a relatively short time. Definitely something you wouldn't want to do without the owner giving you the go ahead (and reduction in rent to cover the improvements your making to their property).
If you opt against setting up a connection with the local ISP, your best bet would be to get an air card with a data plan from a cell provider. Just like a smart phone, these will connect over a 3g/4g connection to get you internet access. You should be able to plug it into one of your computers and use it as a hotspot to wirelessly connect additional systems to it.
Alternatively, if you have a smart phone with a data plan, it should be able to function as a wireless hotspot, feeding the internet connection through your smart phone to your computer(s). It'll eat battery power on the phone, but if you have it plugged into a charger it should be fine.
With either of those last two options, make sure you have reliable data usage tracking. I don't know how it is in Canada, but providers in the States love to slap you down if you go over your data limit (even if they sold the plan as "unlimited"). Sometimes it's just throttling your data to dial up speeds, sometimes it's overage charges. I'd be really surprised if Canada was different in that regard.
Most internet providers provide router/modem combinations that do wifi. We use comcast, but I don't know what options they have in Canada.
Where he lives, assume any regular modernized city.