Question about WiFi range (inside of building)

[TransformX]

Just get yourself 30m of cat5 and a roller.
Reel it out a window at night, and back in in the morning.

Drill holes in the walls if you need to.
Dorms are the building equivalent of rental cars.

I agree with the method. Remember to drill the holes slightly diagonally so that the outside hole is lower than the inside one (you don't want rain dripping in).
If possible, get a longer cable and try to get it to go near a drain or something like that so it doesn't look too suspicious.

[Gurm]

We did this freshman year at my dorm. One person bought cable for quite a few other rooms, and we set up an ad-hoc network throughout the dorm. The hard part was running the wiring across the street to the main campus network so we could get onto the rest of the network - we didn't so much care about the Internet at the time, it was 1992 after all and the WWW was just an idea!

Your dorm supervisor doesn't need to know. Like they said, you're talking about running a cable down the side of the building at night. Run it next to a drainpipe or something and you're all good. Just buy half-decent Cat5 from Home Depot. LOL!

A few staples, a couple drilled holes, and you're done. Nobody will EVER notice.

[Taz]

Nobody will EVER notice.

Famous last words

[SteveC]

Is there a building next door? Might be able to bounce the signal off that if you have the wireless kit by the window.

[cjolley]

You could even run it down a trash or elevator shaft

[Nowhere]

No, no, cable won't work in the case of that building...he'll know. (OK, only "most probably"...still, that's the last resort)
Also, no buidling nearby so no bouncing... (besides the windows in both places aren't on the same side of the buidling...)

[Whirl-Secret]

This is totally doomed - much better chance of getting a network going by buying 2 3G cards (someone mentioned this I think) and then setting up a VPN or even some other NATbuster like VNC or gotomypc.

As a stable solution, wireless really sucks - it will never exceed anyone's expectations in terms of connectivity!

[Gurm]

Actually Mitre and some other companies have experimented with networking via ground-penetrating radar. I guarantee you that the prototype cards I played with a couple years back would make it through those floors. LOL!

[Nowhere]

Hmmm...I realised one of locations is right next to 3-elevator shaft, and another one is close. Irrelevant for WiFi range? (and no, I can't use a cable there )

[schmosef]

Nowhere,

I'm gonna make this simple...

THIS WON'T WORK!

Not MAYBE won't; IT WON'T WORK!

People sometimes have problems getting WiFi working IN THE SAME ROOM! Spanning 8 Floors would be a miracle. People would start making pilgrimage to your dorm to see the "miracle of the file transfer that should not be". You'd be able to sell enough tickets to afford to move out of that dorm.

[Nowhere]

OK, I get it.
Only one question left...if WiFi is so shitty, why is it so popular/praised? :/

[schmosef]

OK, I get it.
Only one question left...if WiFi is so shitty, why is it so popular/praised? :/

I've never seen a coffeeshop span 9 stories.

Hotels that offer WiFi have antenna in multiple locations on each floor.

It generally works ok if you live in an apartment or small house.

I get really poor WiFi performance in my condo. I think it's because of the angles of the walls.

If your conditions are right, it works well (but it's never as fast as it's rated to be).

If your conditions are poor, it will not work.

[az]

Well, it might work with (illegally) high-powered directional antennas, but this would not come cheap, and it's still not guaranteed.

[gt40]

well you can bulid one of these and hang it out the window

[az]

That's kinda what I was suggesting, but it still wouldn't suffice because the windows are not on the same side of the building, and the gain from those antennas is probably not enough to go through nine stories of building.