How far does the signal reach in my home? 

We will provide you with a wireless router. Like all other wifi equipment here in the UK, it is restricted in terms of signal output to around 22db. This means that it will be no more or less powerful than any other wifi device. 

You should think carefully where you wish to place your router. We normally recommend that its near the TV, so that your TV, playstation, Sonos, etc can all plug in directly. This does mean, depending on your house layout, that the signal does not cover every room.  Older houses with 1m thick walls are particularly difficult to get wifi signal.

Remember - we can only support the router within your home - we cannot support all the other computer, video or hi-fi equipment in your home. 

Can you recommend Range Extenders?

We are constrained by UK law to provide devices that transmit less than 25db (or 1 watt) of wifi power. Of course in our traditional Scottish homes with thick internal walls, this sometimes leaves us with dead spots.

Here at Casa Buchan, for instance, I have two other wifi units around the home - and yet still cannot get wifi in the greenhouse. So. To cure this, there are a number of solutions.

1. Expensive.

Run more ethernet cables around your home from your central location, and hang wifi stations off these. This is what myself and Euan did, for instance. Its a PITA to run additional cables, and the wifi units that Euan and I use - the Apple Airport Express ones - are not cheap at £70 each. The upside is that this solution is very reliable. And of course running any form of additional cabling in your house is time consuming, messy and not the sort of thing you want to do just before Christmas.

Our installation company - Standard Security of Stonehaven are very good at any sort of domestic or commercial cable installation - I'd recommend you contact them. 

2. Homeplugs / Range Extenders

This is a system where you plug in a number of adaptors around the house. One is plugged into a socket beside our router (the wee white 'Mikrotik' box we supplied), and a short cable is plugged into it. Then you can place or more other adaptors into power sockets - each of these sockets would then provide another wifi point.

There is a bewildering array of these on Amazon.co.uk. Which one to choose? Well, we've tried various Netgear ones with limited success. But a local restaurant have been using devices from Solwise for a number of months, and recommend them. 

So you can start off with this Solwise 'pair' - one is a plug you plug into the mains and the router - and another is a wifi point. You can add up to another two of these, for a total of three remote wifi points. This should work on all mains cabling sharing a common electricity meter. For instance, in the summer months, you could put one in a garden shed to cover the garden. They do a number of different ranges with different speeds - this one supports up to 500mb/s across all devices. Their 200mb/s range costs £5 or £10 less per device. Be careful when you order additional units to check that they're all work together.

http://solwise.co.uk/net-powerline-pl-500av-pevw-kit.html

This pair costs £43.30, which is actually very cheap. Additional wifi points - http://solwise.co.uk/net-powerline-pl-500av-pevw.html - cost another £28.85 each. You can have up to eight devices attached to this sytem

I have to stress that we don't use them personally, but we have a number of customers who are very happy with them, and recommend them highly