OT- Wi Fi range extender for home recommendations ?

The usual deal...signal strength is weak at the far corners of the house. Another 50 feet of range would be nice. Replacing current router wi fi combo would be problematic as it is owned by the cable company, so an extender would be best..if they work. Reviews on Amazon tend to indicate some work great for awhile but then drop the signal. Hopefully something under 80 bucks. What say ye ?

Better antennas at the router end? Directional if they are at one corner of the house. If they have longer cords then you can locate them for better reception. This solved my problem of getting reception out in my shop. Router is in the house.

I had a similar problem, wifi at the wrong end of the house. I installed a run of Cat5 cable to where I wanted the best reception and intalled an access point there. I used a little device from trendnet. It works very well.

I just added a second access point (wired to the first) in the house, and one in the barn (400+ feet away). Problem solved.

A "range extender" can be another access point or works by narrowing the antenna polar plot to be directional. If it's the latter, in the right place it can work fine, but it can make it worse in some areas. Your uplink power (from laptop/device) is still the same. If an active device - receives and retransmits, you'd need one compatible with your cable co box. I went though all of this and found another AP was the easiest solution.

If your cable co. router is not "802.11N", add one to the existing router and disable (or not) that supplied. N is far better for range and may give you what your need. That assumes your devices are "N".

Lakeside53 said:

If your cable co. router is not "802.11N", add one to the existing router and disable (or not) that supplied. N is far better for range and may give you what your need. That assumes your devices are "N".

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How do I find out ?

Should be marked on the product. Upgrade to the N standard if you don't already have it and can do so.

IEEE 802.11 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tom

I do have a Netgear WN2500RP and it works great and reliably.
Instantiates a second network you connect to.
Don't remember the price as I bought it last year.

Nick

If you post the make and model of your cable modem (or even googling it with 802.11) should give you the info as to what protocol it supports. But unless yours is ancient it likely supports N anyway. Of course, it could be configured to disable N, so you might want to check that.

A quick way to verify if your router supports/is configured for N (or B or G or whatever) from a Mac is to connect to the network via wi-fi, then click the wi-fi/airport icon at the top right corner of the screen while holding down Option. It'll list PHYS Mode: 802.11_ for whatever mode it's connected with.

If yours doesn't support 802.11N and you rent your modem, or it comes free with your cable account, contact the company and ask if they have a newer model. Usually they replace free-of-charge with the new model when customers ask, as it's simpler for them when diagnosing support issues.

Also, don't dismiss what was mentioned earlier about antenna placement: It makes a huge difference. Relocating/changing the orientation of the modem or antenna can make a huge difference. There's some decent info at this link: networking - Do different positions of the antenna on a wireless router make any difference? - Super User

If you can move your router to a different room, preferably one more centrally located in your house, that will make a huge difference.

As well, different wireless routers can make a huge difference in transmission distances. Generally speaking, built-in routers in modems are terrible, so adding a decent router could rectify the situation by itself. Also, some wireless repeaters/extenders/bridges don't play nice on networks with different brand routers, so that could explain some of the reviews you saw on Amazon.

Companies tend to rip people off on extenders/bridges, charging way more than they're worth and selling underpowered devices, so in general I wouldn't recommend buying a purpose-built wireless extender. You'll likely be disappointed. If I can't fix wireless issues by upgrade equipment or relocating it, I usually either buy a router that's 802.11N-capable and can run DD-WRT (which will allow it to run as a wireless bridge), or Apple's Airport Extreme/Express devices. If you're looking for simple setup, nothing beats Apple's Airport devices. The downside is they aren't cheap, but the previous-generation Airport Extreme is available for a discount on eBay et al.

If you really want to try a wireless extender, Netgear's WN2500RP is probably the best. It's about $80. Remember that you'll have to place it somewhere where it can get consistent, strong signal from your router.

JoeBean said:

If you post the make and model of your cable modem (or even googling it with 802.11) should give you the info as to what protocol it supports.

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Arris DG860A

Been through this and it didn't work, due to going to a different building with an awkward placement and range. Started a thread about it way back when.

But your situation is easier because your inside your house. You can use a power line extender, which uses your wiring to transmit the signal. No fiddling with proper placement of the booster antenna (which needs to be re-programmed every time you unplug it to change its location--lots of running back and forth).

Here's some net gear power line extenders: Powerline | Networking | Home | NETGEAR

You ought to be able to disable the routing/wireless half of your cable/dsl modem, then you can bridge the connection to a much nicer router. You may even be able to exchange the provided router for a simple modem and save a few bucks a month.

Sea Farmer said:

B
Here's some net gear power line extenders: Powerline | Networking | Home | NETGEAR

Click to expand...

Wow...that actually works ? Reminds me of ads in Popular Mechanics in the 1960's "Turn your whole house into a TV antenna" just by plugging the advertised doo dad in your wall outlet....which of course did about as much as X Ray glasses.

Those connections are slow, like less than 56mb/s slow. I think less than 10mb/s is common.

This will also work in your home to extend the range. The WEP key remains the same so setup is easy. You will not need to use the directional antenna on your modem. Just use the range extender.


This came up in a thread a year or two ago. There was a long discussion on how to get internet access to work in a remote shop without running cable. A lot of high tech terms were thrown around with no real specifics so hopefully this will simplify your life if you need to do this. My shop is 550 feet from my house and I did not want to run CAT 5 that far. I remember a lot of suggestions but nothing conclusive on what would work and what would not. I just want to say here what I did and that it worked great. I bought a Hawking HA12W directional antenna that is about a foot high and four inches wide and sticks to the inside of my window in the house with provided suction cups. It plugs directly into my Verizon modem. No power supply or anything. You just unscrew the little rubber duck antenna that comes with the modem and plug in the Hawking antenna. I have it pointed in the general direction of my shop which is completely hidden by trees by the way. On the other end I placed a Netgear WN2000RPT range extender in a window of the shop. The range extender is about 8" tall and 1.5" thick. The only connection on the shop end is the plug in power supply that came with. The range extender just picks up the very weak signal from the antenna in my house ( I got absolutely no connection without doing this) and re-transmits a strong signal in the shop. I had the whole thing up and going in 30 minutes. Total cost was about $100 which is probably less then the CAT 5 cable alone and one heck of a lot easier. I got both items at Best Buy which is probably one of the more expensive places to shop but not knowing if it would really work or not I wanted the take back policy within 15 days that they offer. It works great and I highly recommend this if you need WI-FI in your remote shop, outhouse or whatever.

I have done what some of the others have done, strung cat5 out to the problem areas and put in extra access points, all with the same wlan id and password. I can just walk round and my mobile devices join the strongest ap and it all works. We're up to four at the moment, one covering the workshop so there's no trailing network cords, one outside covering the garden and two the house (stone internal wall attenuates everything wireless).
Its not glamourous or high tech, but it just works.

You might also look at the documentation for the wireless router you have and see how to log onto it from your computer and check the settings. Some have different power levels available and are set by default to a modest power level. That solved a problem with a 2-Wire at one place I did a job for.

Recently solved similar problem. My research indicated that the "range extender" solutions were generally slow and limited, as others have pointed out. If you can easily run Cat5 cable to a better location where you can install another access point, that's a great way to go. If not, I'd ask the cable company if you can install your own router. My solution was a better router with a more powerful signal. Found this site that rates them. Chose the ASUS RT-N66U Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router because it was tops in range. Even though I already had what I thought was a decent wifi router, this thing blows it away. Problem solved. Great signal all over old house with some thick masonry walls.

Jeff

I bought one of these

Amazon.com: Amped Wireless High Power Wireless-N 600mW Smart Repeater and Range Extender (SR10000): Electronics

Setup took all of five minutes and it works like a charm.