I put MoCA and a TP-LINK Omada setup (unified control of all AP's - you define the network, adopt the AP's as they are plugged into the network, and they offer the SSIDs and options you want) in my in-laws' house a couple of years ago. They went from almost-undetectable WiFi in most places to a solid signal throughout the entire house. They love it. They even asked why their ISP didn't do it. I told them that $400 of gear and two hours of expertise in setting it up was not in Charter's budget. My MIL even said oh, we'll pay for the gear, you didn't need to spend that much. No, you won't, it's a gift from me (because it means that my wife and I won't have to worry about nonexistent WiFi when we're at your house).
WiFi 7 will fix that for sure, it says on the box that it ‘will finally make true multi-gigabit WiFi throughout the home a reality with faster speeds, less interference, and better performance for today's many high-bandwidth online activities.”
Key problem with all the wifi standards is the bandwidth upgrades are real, but they mostly give you more headroom for dealing with interference.
Which is good, but it's why we always have this delta. It does feel like at some point we might end up with apartment building standards requiring 2.4ghz/5ghz mesh in the walls to attenuate cross-talk signals between apartments or something (and then maybe phone-tower micro antennas to provide signal for 5G).
>It does feel like at some point we might end up with apartment building standards requiring 2.4ghz/5ghz mesh in the walls to attenuate cross-talk signals between apartments or something (and then maybe phone-tower micro antennas to provide signal for 5G).
I've had it both ways, and I can't say that it is better either way.
In dense neighborhoods (especially stick-framed apartments), Wifi is problematic due to co-channel interference, as you've addressed. This can be resolved somewhat by increasing the density of my own access points.
But things don't get completely rosy with isolation, either. My current dwelling has aluminum siding, low E windows, and even some metal lath in the walls. This all conspire to make it resemble a Faraday cage.
Wifi works great indoors, but it's a struggle to even load up the most basic of web pages (like HN) using wifi on my front porch.
It is fixable by adding some low-power access points outside and I probably will do that at some point. It's just still not exactly ideal, either.
Can't we fix this with better beamforming? Lots of stuff doesn't use it at all, there's probably a lot of spectrum to be gained just with very basic stuff.
If they improve it enough and make it cheaper, the WiFi people could rename anything without beamforming to wifi lite or something so everyone knows to avoid it if possible.
With decent planning though and PoE it's substantially easier to add new APs to cover dead spots due to signal attenuation then it is to try and reduce signal attenuation after everything is built though.
I can fish new wires through walls, I can't easily wrap my building in mesh.
If you have coax, MoCA is a stellar option.
I put MoCA and a TP-LINK Omada setup (unified control of all AP's - you define the network, adopt the AP's as they are plugged into the network, and they offer the SSIDs and options you want) in my in-laws' house a couple of years ago. They went from almost-undetectable WiFi in most places to a solid signal throughout the entire house. They love it. They even asked why their ISP didn't do it. I told them that $400 of gear and two hours of expertise in setting it up was not in Charter's budget. My MIL even said oh, we'll pay for the gear, you didn't need to spend that much. No, you won't, it's a gift from me (because it means that my wife and I won't have to worry about nonexistent WiFi when we're at your house).