Case Studies / Latest Case

Weak Bedroom WiFi With Two Good Routers: the Single Wall Port Meant the Main Router Had to Move (Occom, North Sydney)

Student · northern SydneyOccom · Redtrain fibreTwo ASUS routersOne wall port onlyWeak bedroom WiFiRoles swapped, no new hardware

The request that came in was “the main router is in the living room, the bedroom signal is bad, I want to add a router in the bedroom”. That instinct is right about the symptom and wrong about the fix. There was only one wall port between the two rooms, and it ran one way only. Adding a second router in the bedroom would have had nothing to plug into. The building's fibre infrastructure here is Redtrain, with Occom as the provider.

The original layout · why a second router had nowhere to plug in

Line arrives

bedroom

→

Single wall port

one way only

Only one path

→

Main router

living room

→

Bedroom WiFi

weak

The incoming line was in the bedroom, but the router had been carried out to the living room through the one wall port linking the two rooms. That single port was already used up carrying the connection out of the bedroom, so there was no second cable path to bring a wired backhaul back in. The bedroom, where the person actually is, ended up furthest from the router in the flat.

Put the main router where the line comes in, not where it looks tidy

Most weak-signal complaints in flats are a placement problem before they are an equipment problem.

Work out which room the incoming line actually arrives in. That room is the cheapest place to have strong WiFi.
Count the wall ports between rooms. One port means one wired path, and that path can only run in one direction.
A second router is only worth adding if you can feed it over a cable. Wireless-repeating it into a weak corner rarely helps as much as people expect.
If you spend most of your time in the bedroom, that is where the main router belongs — even if the living room looks like the more natural spot.

How the visit went

Mapped the existing network before touching anything

Line in the bedroom, router in the living room

Explained why adding a bedroom router would not work with one wall port

No spare path for a wired backhaul

Moved the living-room ASUS into the bedroom to sit where the line arrives, as the main router

Main router now next to the user

Configured the second ASUS as a wired access point and placed it in the living room

Fed through the same single wall port

Plugged the TV and set-top box into the living-room unit and tested both rooms

Bedroom signal and speed clearly improved

Before and after · same two routers, same single port

	Before	After
Main router	Living room, fed through the wall port	Bedroom, directly on the incoming line
Second router	Not installed — nowhere to connect it	Living room, wired access point mode
Bedroom WiFi	Weak, furthest point from the router	Strong, router is in the room
Living room devices	On the main router's wireless	TV and set-top box wired into the second unit
Hardware bought	—	None — the two existing routers were re-used

Two notes from this job that apply beyond this flat:

Newer buildings are not always served by NBN or Opticomm. Here the fibre infrastructure provider is Redtrain, which means far fewer retail providers to choose from, and pricing to match. Check this before you sign a lease if internet matters to you.
Where a modem is in bridge mode, usually only one of its LAN ports is available to feed the router that dials the connection. If the modem dials instead, more ports are usable — but most modems are not well suited to handling the connection themselves, so letting the router do it is normally the better setup.
Two routers of different models can still work together, as long as one of them is clearly the main one and the other is not trying to run the network as well.

Result

Root cause: placement, not equipment. The incoming line arrived in the bedroom but the main router had been moved to the living room through the flat's only wall port, leaving no cable path for a wired backhaul and leaving the bedroom the weakest spot in the flat. Swapping the roles — main router in the bedroom on the incoming line, the second ASUS as a wired access point in the living room feeding the TV and set-top box — noticeably improved bedroom signal and speed with no new hardware bought.

ASUS routers Mesh WiFi installation WiFi coverage service Modem vs router explained Choosing a provider in Sydney WiFi installation

Weak Bedroom WiFi With Two Good Routers: the Single Wall Port Meant the Main Router Had to Move (Occom, North Sydney)

Put the main router where the line comes in, not where it looks tidy

How the visit went

Related

Facing something similar?