• Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    also I’m on apartment-wide wifi

    Oof, yeah, that’s understandable. There’s still ways to set that up, but yeah if you’re using WiFi provided by the apartment complex, the setup just got more complicated.

    • BluJay320
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      1 year ago

      It’s super annoying too, cause I had a pretty nice router that’s just had to be shelved since I moved…

      Granted the internet speed itself is better than my last place, but I hate not being in my own network

      • notfromhere@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        You could potentially find the best spot in the apartment for reception and set up a repeater router for your “private” use if it’s not against your lease agreement. Then you’d be able to directly connect to e.g. hardwired things, roku TV or local server if you have any.

        • BluJay320
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          1 year ago

          Would that impact my internet speed at all?

          Also, how would I go about doing that

          • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Yes, anytime you’re extending a WiFi signal, you’re essentially cutting your speeds in half because WiFi can only run half-duplex as opposed to full-duplex like wired ethernet.

            Duplex means you can send signal in both directions. Full duplex means you can send signal in both directions at the same time. Half duplex means you can only send in one direction at a time. Simplex means it can only go one direction and you need two cables to do both directions (a lot of fiber-optic connections are simplex with two cables, one for each direction of signal. Light can’t really go two directions at once.).

            If you add more repeaters, it literally keeps “repeating” the data sent back and forth, slowing down the WiFi because it has to repeat the same data more and more and more, as you add more repeaters.

            Source: Took a WiFi class when I was getting my network admin degree. You’re never supposed to have more than one WiFi repeater for this reason. Mesh networks are different.

            https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-simplex-half-duplex-and-full-duplex-transmission-modes/#

            • BluJay320
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              1 year ago

              So basically more trouble than it’s really worth, is what I’m hearing… I do a lot of gaming, so cutting my speed is basically out of the question

              • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Right. I usually try to make sure I can live somewhere I can be in control of my own connection, but I understand that’s not always available. I’ve been in the same position before myself and it was a bummer because it felt limiting.

                There’s some options where ad-blockers are VPN based, like Blokada for Android. That means you could log in to the VPN with your personal machine and get ad blocking that way. You could turn it off for when you game if you game on PC, or if you play games on console, you can always leave it on because it won’t affect your consoles.

          • notfromhere@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            There are ways to do it that do not cut the rate in half, e.g. dedicating one band to the internet connection and one band to your client connections, using two routers (one as client, one as AP).