The ghost in the walls: Why Wi-Fi speed drops in different rooms

There's a fifth dimension beyond those normally known. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind… and apparently, of zero Wi-Fi bars. Every home has one room that exists in it. You know the one.

Everything is fine in the kitchen. Fine in the lounge. You turn the corner and something shifts. The bars drop. The stream dies. The loading wheel begins its sickeningly slow, maddening rotation.

You haven't entered another dimension. You've just met your dead zone. And unlike the Twilight Zone, this one has a very boring, very fixable explanation.

The phenomenon of "Dead Zones"

You’re not going to start seeing dead people like that kid from The Sixth Sense. It's only physics.

Your modem broadcasts Wi-Fi as radio waves in every direction. But those waves don't travel forever at full strength. They're constantly fighting against the building you live in. Walls, floors, ceilings, and every material between the modem and your device.

It’s like that attic in Hereditary. It’s technically part of the house, technically accessible, but something in there is just deeply, structurally wrong.

The Physics of Wi-Fi

Materials matter. Some are relatively Wi-Fi-friendly. Others are basically like Ghostface from Scream. It just fully kills your connection in the middle of a call. With no explanation.

Since a lot of Australian homes are older brick veneer builds or double-brick constructions, they’re particularly terrible when it comes to Wi-Fi.

Here are some other materials and what their effect on your connection is…

Distance vs. Speed: The inverse square law (simplified)

Everyone, put your thinking hats on. We’re going to explain a physics principle.

It’s why moving even a few metres can absolutely tank your signal and it’s called the Inverse Square Law.

Every time you double your distance from the modem, your signal strength drops to roughly a quarter of what it was.

This is why standing in the hallway is fine, the living room is bordering on okay and the back bedroom is a black hole.

A single modem in the corner of your home was never going to cover the whole thing at full strength. It's not a failure of the modem. It's just physics being physics.

Interference: The other ghosts in the machine

But don’t just blame distance and materials. Your home is full of devices (and they’re estimating it will be up to 44 in 2030) broadcasting on similar frequencies as your Wi-Fi. Or at least all competing in the same airspace.

Common interference sources on 2.4 GHz

The 2.4 GHz band is possibly the most haunted frequency. And it’s so crowded because all these things operate on it:

• Baby monitors

• Microwave ovens

• Bluetooth speakers and headphones

• Wireless security cameras

• Your neighbour's modem (yes, really)

• Garage door openers

The 5 GHz band

The 5 GHz band is faster and less congested, but it has the range of a candle in a cathedral. It barely makes it through a single wall before it starts to lose strength. Great if you're sitting next to the modem. Less useful anywhere else in the house.

The 2.4 GHz vs 5 GHz summary:

Neither band is the answer on its own. Which is exactly why the solution isn't a better modem in one spot, it's better coverage everywhere….

The solution? Move the modem, or call in reinforcements

Option 1: Move the modem

Central placement, elevated position, away from appliances and thick walls. This helps.

It's free. It's worth trying first, and if your home is small with simple construction, it may be all you need.

But in a double-storey home, a brick veneer or any house with the floor plan of a Mystery House, repositioning the modem is the equivalent of checking under the bed.

Option 2: Wi-Fi extenders

Cheap. Widely available. And about as effective as splitting up in a horror film.

Extenders work by grabbing your existing Wi-Fi signal and rebroadcasting it. In doing so, they use half the available bandwidth just to repeat the signal. You get more range and less speed.

You also often end up with a second network name that your devices switch to at the worst possible moment.

Option 3: Mesh Wi-Fi (the actual fix)

A mesh system like eero uses multiple nodes, one connected to your modem, others placed around the home, that communicate with each other as a single, unified network. One network. Seamless roaming between nodes.

Where an extender is a walkie-talkie playing a game of telephone, a mesh system is a full radio network.

For more troubleshooting on why your internet keeps dropping out, we’ve got handy tips for you to test.

You don’t need an exorcist; you just need a mesh system

Dead zones are fixable. All work and no Wi-Fi makes Jack a very, very frustrated person. But unlike most horror stories, this one ends well. If you choose the right path…

Explore Superloop's eero mesh systems, available bundled with selected nbn® plans for whole-home coverage and Wi-Fi 7 performance on the eero Pro 7. Just set it up through an app. No axe required.

Let's leave the horror to Room 237. Every room in your house deserves full bars.

Blanket your home in fast Wi-Fi with a Superloop eero 7 mesh Wi-Fi 7 modem today.