I'll try to explain this as best I can so please bear with me.

A friend has recently 'moved back home' and is trying to sort out wifi access to a garage in the garden. The existing wifi is in the corner of the house and the garage is no more than 5/6 metres away in a straight line (the two buildings slightly being offset - if you see what I mean). The corners have direct line of sight and are close enough for you to immediately say 'oh that will be fine'.

The wifi coverage in the house is what you would expect from a standard Vodafone install, quite reasonable. Its a restored 1920's villa so wood construction everywhere. The shed however is clad in corrugated iron, nice and thick :(

So we had a play over the weekend just with some simple wifi apps on our phones, the desktop, a laptop and two different modem/routers. Around the house its great, the same distance (outside the house) but in the other direction is great, but to the garage, nothing.

In the corner of the garage I saw the power 'fuse-box/switch box' and wondered where the power was coming from. The box is directly above his PC and it turns out it comes from under the house corner and runs underground, in a direct line to the corner of his shed.

So can I assume this is the problem ? I know the basics of not running network cables next to power lines so am assuming this is the same. The moment we leave the house (maybe 2m from the router) the signal drops to 40% and after a couple of steps its gone altogether.

So I looked under the house and the power cables are there, with a couple of metres wound round in a loop before shooting under ground.

If we're correct are we right in thinking there is little we can do other than dig a trench to bury a network cable to the other side of the shed and wire it up from there ?

Thanks in advance for any idea's.

Cheers