A Loft One Floor Above the Router: 20-30 Mbps on a Phone, Full 100 Mbps After a Wired Run to an eero Pro 6E (Waterloo)

Student · WaterlooOccom 100 MbpsDSL connectionLoft above the router20-30 Mbps upstairsWired run to a second router

The layout was the whole problem. The router lived downstairs, the student lived in the loft upstairs, and a phone speed test up there came back at 20-30 Mbps on a 100 Mbps plan. Gaming on a tablet was unstable. Nothing was broken — the signal simply had a floor to get through, and the fix was to stop asking it to.

Why we did not just buy a better router

The instinct in this situation is to replace the router with a faster one. On this line that would have been money spent for very little.

The connection here is DSL on a 100 Mbps plan. That is the ceiling. A high-end router on the same line still delivers 100 Mbps at best — its stronger wireless hardware cannot manufacture speed that the line does not carry. So we left the existing TP-Link exactly where it was, doing the one job it is needed for: making the connection. Everything else moved upstairs.

Where the speed was lost

Occom 100M plan

100

→

DSL router downstairs

100

→

WiFi through the floor

20-30

Bottleneck

→

Phone in the loft

20-30

Everything up to the router was delivering the full plan speed. The loss happened in one place: the wireless hop from a router downstairs to a room upstairs. Building materials between floors absorb a lot of signal, and no setting on the router changes that. The only real options are to move the signal closer or to carry it up the stairs on a cable — and a cable does not care what the floor is made of.

Before and after, upstairs

Upstairs in the loft · before vs after

Before (WiFi from downstairs)

20-30 Mbps

After (eero in the loft)

~100 Mbps

4×faster upstairs on the same 100 Mbps plan — the plan never changed, the signal just stopped crossing a floor.

What we did on site

Went through the layout and offered a few options

Wired run chosen

Left the existing TP-Link doing the DSL connection only

No need to replace it

Ran a 10 m cable from its LAN port up to the loft

Signal carried by cable

Set up an eero Pro 6E in the loft room

Online after configuration

Cabled the desktop from the eero, then retested everything

Phone, tablet, PC all near 100 Mbps

Walked through the eero app with the student

Can change WiFi and see devices

The two approaches side by side

Two ways to fix a floor between you and the router

	Buy a better DSL router	Wired run to a second router
Ceiling on this line	Still 100 Mbps — DSL caps it	Still 100 Mbps, but delivered upstairs
The floor in between	Still there, still absorbing signal	Bypassed by the cable
Where the WiFi comes from	Downstairs, same as before	The room you actually use
If you move house later	A DSL router is tied to this kind of line	The second router moves with you
Wired desktop upstairs	Not possible without a cable anyway	Straight out of the eero

Choosing the second router

We put an eero Pro 6E in the loft. On a 100 Mbps DSL line that is more capability than the connection can currently use, and we chose it deliberately.

The student told us they expect to move to a place with a gigabit-capable connection later. Equipment tied to this line stops being useful the moment that happens, while a mainstream mesh-capable router moves house with you and has room to grow into a faster plan. It also comes with a phone app that makes changing the WiFi name, checking which devices are connected and looking at traffic something the owner can do without calling anyone. That last part matters more than a spec sheet on a student's home network.

What we would take from this one

If the router is on another floor, that is usually the whole story. Test in the room you actually use, not next to the router.
A cable beats a stronger radio. Ten metres of Ethernet up the stairs solves what no amount of wireless tuning downstairs will.
Know your line's ceiling before you shop. On a 100 Mbps DSL connection, a faster router cannot give you more than 100 Mbps.
You can keep the old router. Let it handle the connection and let a second unit handle the WiFi in the room you live in.
If you expect to move to a faster connection, buying a router that is not tied to this line is the more useful choice.

Result

The existing TP-Link stayed downstairs handling the DSL connection. A 10 m cable from its LAN port carried the connection up to an eero Pro 6E placed in the loft room, with a second cable from there to the desktop. On retest the computer, tablet and phone all came back at close to the full 100 Mbps plan speed, and the student tried gaming on each device on the spot and was happy with it. We finished by walking them through the eero app so they can change the WiFi details and see connected devices themselves.

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