As near the centre of the space it has to cover as the incoming line allows, out in the open, off the floor and away from metal, mirrors and other radios. Placement changes coverage more than any specification on the box.
Nothing else you can do costs so little and changes so much.
The principle in one sentence
Radio spreads outwards from the unit and is absorbed by what it passes through, so put it where the fewest obstacles stand between it and the rooms that matter.
What that means in a real building
Central rather than convenient. A router at one end of a long house is spending most of its coverage outside the walls. The middle is worth the trouble of getting the line there.
Out in the open. Inside a cupboard, behind a television or under a desk, the signal is being attenuated before it has gone anywhere. A media unit with a metal back is close to a worst case.
Off the floor. Radio at these frequencies is absorbed by floors, furniture and people, and a unit at waist height or above has a clearer path across a room.
Away from metal and water. A filing cabinet, a fridge, a boiler, a mirror, a foil-backed insulation board and a metal-framed stud partition all interfere far more than people expect. Aquariums are the classic example, and they are not a joke.
Away from other radios. Microwave ovens and some cordless equipment sit in the 2.4 GHz band and will make a mess of it while they are running.
Frequency changes the geometry
The higher the band, the more a given wall costs. The 2.4 GHz band travels furthest through building materials and is the most crowded; 5 GHz has more room and less reach; 6 GHz has the most room and the least reach of the three, and regulators additionally set a power class for indoor use.
So a unit whose 6 GHz radio is the reason it was bought needs to be closer to where it is used than the same unit’s 2.4 GHz radio does. Placement and band plan are one decision, not two.
Vertical placement in a house with floors
Radiation from a typical router is stronger sideways than straight up or down, which is why a unit on the ground floor of a three-storey house serves the top floor poorly however central it is horizontally.
Where the coverage has to reach several floors, the middle floor is the better position — and if the shape of the building does not allow it, that is the argument for a second unit rather than a bigger first one.
What placement cannot fix
A single stubborn wall. If one room is behind something the signal will not cross, moving the router improves everywhere else and not that room, and the answer there is a second radio on the far side of the obstacle — a mesh node or a wired access point.
A slow line. Placement affects the link across the room, never the connection arriving at the building.
The five-minute experiment worth doing
Before drilling anything, put the router temporarily in the position you are considering, using a long lead, and walk the house with a phone watching the signal indicator. Two or three positions tried this way settle the argument better than any coverage figure printed on a carton — those come from the maker’s own assumptions about walls, and no two makers assume the same building.
The questions that come up before an order
The line comes into a corner of the house. What can I do?
Move the router away from the socket rather than accepting the corner. A short cable to a better position, an outlet fitted elsewhere, or leaving the provider’s box where it is and putting your own router somewhere central are all ordinary arrangements. The line has to arrive where it arrives; the radio does not.
Do the antennas need to point in a particular direction?
External antennas radiate outwards from their length rather than off their tips, so an antenna standing vertically covers a floor and one lying flat covers upwards and downwards. On a unit with several, angling them differently is the usual advice from makers who say anything at all — and theirs is the guidance to follow for that model.
Last reviewed 10 September 2026