How Can I Hijack My Neighbor’s Wi-Fi Connection?
I might as well rename this column to “Wifi Master” given how many of you have asked questions about wireless networks in the past few months. It’s okay though. Wireless is near and dear to my heart as I have great memories of the three years I spent testing Wirecutter routers – many, many routers, and enough bandwidth tests to last a lifetime.
This week I’m looking at a question that’s the opposite of what I’m usually asked. I’ll let Lifehacker Tim explain:
It’s fun. First of all, let me say that I am proud that you have worked out a sharing agreement with your neighbor. Internet plans are expensive and there is no need for two people to shell out for an expensive rate. This is assuming neither of you are using the available bandwidth with BitTorrent, Steam downloads, or myriad MMOs – the latter was an issue that prevented me from getting a decent connection when my NYC roommates and I were sharing services with ours. landlord upstairs many years ago.
I’m not sure why your devices need to be reset again – either the devices themselves or whatever wireless access point or router you are using. You haven’t described it in detail, but it’s possible that your devices simply can’t connect to your neighbor’s Wi-Fi. There are probably quite a few walls between their hotspot and your belongings, not to mention a short distance. Even the best routers aren’t limitless, and it’s possible that you simply don’t have a good enough signal to maintain a stable and fast connection.
Usually, when I set up a wireless network (or advise others how to set it up), I recommend placing your primary router or access point – assuming you’re only using one – in the most central location of your home or apartment. This will ensure that you get as much coverage as possible in all major areas of your living space, although you can always tweak the placement if you want a better connection to one side of the house (your bedroom) than the other (your garage). …
In your scenario, this is the best place to place your router or access point somewhere between your neighbor’s house (or apartment) and yours. I understand that the size of your houses and the spacing between them means that even placing the router next to the nearest wall to your neighbor’s house (or vice versa) still means that both of you are likely to get less stellar signals to work with.
While you can always try to get a wireless repeater to “grab” your neighbor’s wireless signal and spit out its own network, you will experience loss of performance for any device connected to your repeater. I’ve written about this before , so here’s a short version: when the repeater is not using a dedicated return channel, then any device you connect to the repeater using the same range that it uses to connect to another router or access point will have it speed has halved. The extender has to do a double duty after all, as this radio will transmit and receive to / from you and whatever the extender is plugged in.
Even so, your typical wireless repeater isn’t … good. It can give you a treat if you need a little extra coverage, but it won’t be able to pass through a 1,500 square foot home on its own. And resist the urge to daisy chain expanders together for the same performance limiting reasons I just mentioned.
Instead, if you’re on the “let’s share the same internet connection” route, the best (and most frustrating) thing you can do is somehow connect your homes with an Ethernet cable. However, this is probably too much to order. Instead, consider investing in something like the Netgear Orbi , which uses a dedicated 5GHz return link to connect both APs, which can use their own 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks without any performance degradation.
You probably want to place each Orbi hotspot against the wall closest to your neighbor’s house, and vice versa. This isn’t a problem if you’re in a duplex or townhouse, but things can get tricky if you have huge, expansive courtyards separating your homes. There’s also a street version of Orbi that might help depending on how you set it up.
I suspect this might fix any wireless issues you are having. If not, pull on that Ethernet cable (and let me know how you did it) and make sure you only use one router and multiple APs, and don’t build a router-type setup in your router.
You can also get pissed off and convince your neighbor to install an outdoor hotspot or even a wireless point-to-point installation that can give you an extra signal that you can use wherever you live. I’m sure it’ll be a little tricky to set up, but worth it if you can effectively cut your internet bill in half (assuming you’re spending some of what your neighbor pays, which would be a kind and generous act.)