Need advice to maximize broadband wireless strength on VirginMedia superhub

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Hi there,
My New Year's resolution was to improve internet speed and wireless 'throw' in our 4 story victorian row house. I am wort of on the way, but need advice. I am a VirginMedia XL (but recently upped to XXL-up to 50MB speed) broadband customer connecting an imac and apple TV on ground floor, two mac laptops on first floor to a new Virgin superhub (netgear) and 5(!) apple express wireless routers (have just kept adding on over the years). I'm looking to streamline and hopefully speed up.

Here is the history and what I've set up so far:
1) Talked to Virgin, we realized my old modem was timing out, so I was getting reduced the speed well below the up to 20mb we were paying for. New modem sent and self installed. Originally, the modem was in the bottom back room, with the internet speed significantly slower on first floor. So I moved new modem (no router) to first floor and got much better speeds on all computers when I connected all the expresses. I thought I could do better if I had a stronger or better modem or router, so

2) I decided to take up the offer for free installation and new superhub and speed increase to 50mb. Virgin installed the superhub, I connected via ethernet 1 express in 1st floor front room to create a wireless network, 1 express in office on same floor to extend the wireless network, 1 express to extend in the ground floor back room. I have 2 additional expresses that I connect for wireless printing and one for itunes speaker in the front room.

3) Speeds in 1st floor room and one directly above is strong. I lose a bit of speed, according to speedtest, in the 1st floor office, but it's ok. Problem is in back ground floor where I have barely any broadband speed on the imac but, surprisingly, decent enough connection to access my itunes library (forgot to test youtube!).

So, i am looking for advice on how I can possibly improve the broadband speed in back ground room short of running a coax or ethernet cable. I feel like returning the virgin hub (router) and returning to 20mb broadband, buying an apple extreme modem as I think the strength is not so good on the virgin router. Or, has any one used a Devolo powerline wireless adapter that purports to increase broadband speed through the electrical current in the house. Any one had success with these?

May have left out key details, so send along any questions or advice...
thanks,
 
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To be honest, the problem will not be with the Virgin hub/modem, not at all.
I think it is most likely to do with the construction of your house.
Now don't take that the wrong way! What I mean is that whatever materials used in it's construction, will affect the ability of the wi-fi signal to penetrate.
If you have particularly thick walls, walls with lots of insulation in them, walls with metal in them, all of those things will affect range to some extent, and the more walls you try to pass signal through, the weaker the signal.
The only way is going to be via Ethernet/Coax.

For the record, I am a 50MB, user, and can take my laptop to the end of my garden, about 60 feet from the modem, and still get 40 mb download speed, but I am only sending the signal through 3 walls, and they are hollow brick construction. Were they breeze block or solid for example, I would not expect anything like that speed.
 
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Many thanks for advice. I assume this may be right as signal has to go through one inner and ine external wall and then diagonally through h- beam supported archway I was just surprised that I was getting better proportional speeds in the back room when I had a modem and all airport expresses! I decided to order the power line and try that before cabling as it will be quite a challenge ti get the wires to this room. Will let you know if this helps. Many thanks
 
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Yes, that's a complex route full of signal blocking obstacles.
Good luck with the power line, please report back and let us know how it goes, as it may prove useful to others.
 
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Superhub wireless strength is terrible

Hi, Like you I live in an old house - however our house is only small, but the Virgin Media Superhub won't reach from one room to another.
I only installed the Superhub yesterday (upgraded to 30Mb), and I am having terrible problems. The Superhub is down in the front room (has to be connected to the V+ TV box) and my home office is upstairs. My imac is only getting two bars on the Airport icon and the speed is very slow.
I am purchasing an extender and hope that this will help - but as I had previously been using a Linksys router without any problems, it must be the Superhub at fault.
I'm beginning to wish I had never upgraded :[
 
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Hi Kevriano and Manster. So glad to hear that it's not just me getting a weak signal on the superhub. Like you, I am wondering why I bothered to upgrade just to get the free installation and a weak router!

I have installed a Devolo powerline AV200 N wireless starter kit - one adapter plugs in the mains and connected via ethernet to hub and the other, which has wireless capacity, is in the back office mains plug placed near the imac. After the initial plug-and-go, I got a significantly better speed. I made the mistake of changing passwords and such using the Devolo software and lost the wireless! I just returned to factory settings and it seems to be working again. I still use the airport expresses for itunes, wifi printing and improving strength between two rooms on the same floor.

Kevirano, I would definitely recommend the Devolo wireless, or if you don't need wireless, I am sure the mains versions will do the trick for less money.

Now, the next question is, how to create a "server" with an external hard drive (LaCie 500) I use for back up. At the moment, it's connected direct to the imac and then occasionally do random backups with the two laptops. It would be great to go wireless for all of them. Do I connect the LaCie to the superhub - can't sure I can as it has only ethernet and lacie has firewire, usb2 and others I don't recognize.

Have been waiting til I got best speed possible before going back to Virgin to see what they suggest...
 

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