Business and home Wi-Fi that reaches every room

The box your internet provider hands you is a modem, router, and Wi-Fi radio in one case, built to a price and installed wherever the cable comes into the building. That's usually a closet, a basement corner, or the far end of the office.

One radio in one corner can't cover a two-story house or a long office, and every wall and floor in between takes a cut. Older buildings are harder still: the brick and plaster walls common in the Millyard and around downtown Manchester block far more signal than drywall does.

The usual fix keeps the provider's box as the modem and lets proper equipment do the routing and the Wi-Fi. Where the provider allows it, I put their box in bridge mode, so the two aren't both trying to be the router.

I start with a site walk. I measure the signal you have now, room by room, note what the walls and floors are made of, and ask where people actually work, stream, and take calls.

From that I draw up a coverage plan: how many access points, where each one mounts, and how the cable gets to it. You see the plan and a written quote before anything is installed.

Both put several Wi-Fi units around the building. The difference is how each one connects back:

• Mesh units relay your traffic to each other over the air. For a smaller home where running cable isn't practical, that's fine, and if that's your situation I'll say so.
• Wired access points each get their own Ethernet cable, which also powers them (PoE), so there's no outlet needed on the ceiling. None of them loses speed relaying traffic for the others, and none depends on the one before it.

For an office, a larger home, or anywhere people rely on video calls, wired access points are what I recommend. If the plan needs new cable runs, I run them, test them, and label them.

Yes, and they should. The guest network gets its own name and password and runs on its own VLAN, a separate segment of the network, so a visitor's phone reaches the internet but not your computers, printers, cameras, or point-of-sale system.

At home, the same setup keeps smart TVs, doorbells, and other gadgets on their own network, away from the laptops.

Yes. Outdoor-rated access points cover a deck, patio, or yard. A warehouse or shop floor gets access points mounted and aimed for open space and high ceilings.

Detached garages, barns, and second buildings are common out in Goffstown and Bedford. A point-to-point wireless bridge can carry the network across the yard without trenching a cable.

Usually Ubiquiti UniFi: a gateway, PoE switches, and access points, all managed from one app. It's business-grade gear priced for a small office or a home, and there are no license fees to keep it running.

If some of what you already have is still good, I'll say so and keep it. I'm an independent installer, not affiliated with Ubiquiti.

More about UniFi installs

A network that's been tested, and what you need to run it without me:

• The admin logins for every piece of equipment.
• A labeled port map, so anyone can tell which cable goes where.
• A one-page written summary of how the network is set up.

No lock-in: anyone competent can pick it up later. Anything that needs power, such as a new outlet, goes to a licensed electrician.