The problem: granite does not let the signal through
Costa Smeralda villas are beautiful partly because they are built with real materials: granite, stone, thick walls. Those same walls are Wi-Fi's worst enemy. A signal crossing a granite wall loses on average 10-15 dB, far more than through plasterboard; after two walls and a floor slab, little or nothing is left.
That is why the provider's router, placed in the corner where the line arrives, covers one or two rooms well and then "disappears": one bar in the bedroom, nothing in the garden.
Why repeaters do not solve it
The temptation is to buy a repeater (or "extender") and put it halfway. The problem is that a repeater must first receive the weak signal and then retransmit it: it halves the available speed and adds a weak link. If what it receives is poor, what it retransmits is just as poor, only spread wider.
Consumer "mesh" systems, when linked wirelessly, suffer the same limit inside granite walls: they work when the nodes see each other well, and in a stone villa they often do not.
The solution: several access points, cabled
A professional network is designed the other way round: instead of one powerful router in one spot, you use several low-power access points, one per zone, connected by network cable and powered through the same cable (PoE). Each access point covers its area with a clean signal and your phone moves from one to the next without interruption, as in a hotel or an airport.
- Two-storey villa of 200-300 m²: usually 3-4 ceiling access points.
- Guest house and pool: an outdoor access point or a dedicated wireless bridge to the guest house.
- A PoE switch in the technical room and a router able to manage several separate networks.
With Ubiquiti UniFi everything is managed from one app: you see who is connected, how much they use, where the weak spots are, and you update everything remotely.
Separate networks: family, guests, devices
A modern villa has dozens of devices: phones, TVs, cameras, alarm, thermostats, speakers. Putting them all on the same network is convenient but not safe. With VLANs you create separate networks — family, guests, cameras and home automation — on the same installation: guests browse without seeing your cameras, and a cheap smart device does not become a door into your computers.
How it is designed (and why a survey is needed)
Not by eye. At the survey we measure real coverage room by room with professional tools, count the devices and look at where cables run (or can run). From there comes the access point map and an accurate quote. Want an idea first? On the service page there is a coverage simulator: drag router and access points and watch the map change.
In short
- One router alone cannot cover a stone villa.
- Wireless repeaters and mesh halve the speed and do not solve it.
- The answer is: several cabled access points, a PoE switch, separate networks, app management.
