Where to put the router in an apartment

An apartment is small enough for one router, so why is the bedroom slow? Because in a flat the enemies are different: the layout and the neighbors.

Published · 2 min read

In this guide
  1. What's different in an apartment
  2. Where to put it
  3. How to get it there
  4. Use the bands to your advantage
  5. When one router really isn't enough
  6. Check it the way you use it

On paper, one router covers an apartment easily. In practice, many apartments have a bedroom or a study where the connection is poor. The reasons are different from a house: distance matters less, and two other things matter more.

What's different in an apartment

The line enters by the front door. In most apartments the socket for the fiber or DSL line is in the entrance, the hallway or the living room wall nearest to it. The router sits there, at one end of the apartment.

The layout is often long. Corridor apartments, railroad layouts and L-shapes put the far bedroom at the end of a straight line of rooms and walls.

The walls may be structural. In many buildings the walls between rooms, or at least some of them, are reinforced concrete. One of those costs more than three plasterboard walls.

The neighbors are everywhere. Above, below, and on both sides, each with a router on the same few channels. In a building, interference often limits the connection more than signal strength does.

Where to put it

  • In the middle of the apartment's length, not at the entrance. In a corridor layout, the hallway halfway along is often the best spot in the flat.
  • High and in the open: on top of a cabinet or a high shelf, not on the floor next to the front door.
  • Away from the wall you share with the stairwell or the lift shaft. Lift shafts are metal boxes.
  • Toward the rooms you use most. If the study matters more than the entrance hall, favor the study.

How to get it there

The line comes in where it comes in, but the router can move: an Ethernet cable from the socket to the new spot, along the skirting board, is cheap and invisible enough. If your provider's box has to stay by the door, turn off its Wi-Fi and put your own router or access point in the middle, connected by cable.

Use the bands to your advantage

In an apartment, 5 GHz is your friend. It doesn't reach as far, but the distances are short, and it's far less crowded than 2.4 GHz, where every neighbor is shouting at once. Keep 2.4 GHz for devices that need it and for the one far room if it struggles. See 2.4 GHz vs 5 GHz by room.

When one router really isn't enough

If a concrete wall cuts the flat in two, a single mesh node on the far side of it, placed where it still hears the router, usually solves it. See where to put a mesh node and the basics of router placement.

Check it the way you use it

WiFi Heatmap maps the apartment room by room on your iPhone. Map it with the router by the door, move it to the hallway with a temporary cable, and map it again. In an apartment the difference usually shows up in the last room of the corridor, and it's easier to see on two maps than to feel.