Wifi Range Booster

[Ironwood]

I could use a couple of suggestions to boost the wifi signal in my two storey home. My HP netbook in my upstairs office struggles to receive the wifi signal from my modem which is located on my TV entertainment stand in my ground floor family room at the opposite end of my two storey home. Diagonally the modem is well within range of the netbook, but the signal has to go through walls, floors and beams of a 3 year old home. The netbook receives a strong signal if I take it to our ground floor where the modem is located. Our I-Pad and Surface tablets are able to pick up the wifi signal anywhere in the house.
My modem can't be changed or upgraded, as it is provided by my fiber TV/Internet provider package as it is integrated with two wireless HD receivers and one HDPVR. My service provider has a extended range modem, but they want $200 for the upgrade...and I have to use their modems.
So, I'd like to find an inexpensive compact dual band wifi range extender that plugs into a wall socket or by USB to my netbook. I'm always complaining about poor wifi whenever we travel. Could I take such a device with me and boost the wifi in a hotel room or condo?

 

[taterhed]

Yes. And no.

Extenders are bad news. 50 percent loss of throughput due to design.
Few questions:

What speed are we talking about here? 3gigs 10 gigs 100 gigs? DSL, cable?

Do you currently have any network wiring in your house? Do you have any phone lines (unused) in your house that were run with 4 pair (cat 5, cat 6) cable instead of old-fashioned 2 line copper? If you have any kind of wiring you can use (cable, cat 5) that's best. Could you possibly run a network cable (cat5) from the family room to the middle (or other end) of the house; this would solve your problem quickly. (is it basement?)

Next best is to try a home powerline adapter....I've gotten great service from these without the range-extender headaches. But, every home is different. You just have to buy it and try it out. (NETGEAR AC750 Dual Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Range Extender (EX6100) ) under $70 for 2. You can add extra units to have multiple points if needed. Use as wireless jack for wifi router as well. Keep in mind--you may have to switch plugs until you find a good circuit to use. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/powerline/view



Finally, The best range extended I know of is this: NETGEAR AC1200 High Power 700mW Dual Band Wi-Fi Range Extender - Desktop with 5 Ports (EX6200) (under $100 Amazon). Place it halfway between the HP and the basement unit. You'll probably not like the performance. Range extenders basically translate everything, so it really slows it down.

Reply and I'll see if I can help more.

 

[SMHarman]

Is there somewhere in the home you can get a CAT5 OR CAT6 cable upstairs. Alongside plumbing or hvac risers? running in the back of closets that stack above each other? Or as said above is your phone wire cat 5.

I would take an alternate approach to above and buy 2 ubiquity wireless access points. One for each floor. Put them near the center of the floor. Turn off the WiFi on the router and use both of these to give blanket WiFi.

They look like smoke alarms but can easily be put in closets instead to keep from view.

About $70 each (plus some network cable)

Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk

 

[Ironwood]

Thanks Taterhed and SMHarman...I'm in a 3 year old home and of course all wiring is new. I do have an unused phone line in my office upstairs (the smallest bedroom). We cut the home phone cord sometime ago and just use our cells. I have fiber optic cable to the house and 50 mbps download speed. My speed tests taken near the modem show I'm getting what I'm paying for. I'm looking ideally for a wireless solution so a home powerline adapter may be what I should explore. There is a Best Buy within 10 minutes drive and on-line they have a good selection including several Netgear models.

 

[Conan]

Our Netflix-connected TV wasn't getting enough of a signal from our Comcast/Xfinity router on the other side of the house.

I paid Amazon $100 for a highly-rated Netgear extender.
http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-AC1200-Power-700mW-Extender/dp/B00HQ883QW/

Costly, yes, but it did solve the problem.

 

[Ironwood]

Our Netflix-connected TV wasn't getting enough of a signal from our Comcast/Xfinity router on the other side of the house.

I paid Amazon $100 for a highly-rated Netgear extender.
http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-AC1200-Power-700mW-Extender/dp/B00HQ883QW/

Costly, yes, but it did solve the problem.

Thanks.... Best Buy has both the AC1200 and the AC750 Taterhed recommended.

 

[BJRSanDiego]

I am on ATT U-verse with a 2-Wire (brand) gateway (combo modem and wifi router). I recall see that when I set it up, I had the option to select higher output levels. I chose not to do that. But even if I were to increase the output power of the gateway, it may not help if it cannot "hear" by wireless computer.

I read that you said that you had a 50 Mbps line and I also read a comment that the wifi extenders will reduce your throughput. But running at 25 Mbps is still very fast.

I looked up on-line the Netgear box that Conan recommended and also read up on decreased speed issues. One said that the router communication speed would be decreased by 2. But I don't think that this is necessarily the same as your ISP speed (50 Mbps). I see that the Netgear box runs up to 1200 Mbps. So, if it dropped from 1200 Mbps to 600, that is still many times faster than your ISP.

So, I would recommend spending the $100 to get the Netgear box and give it a try. I suspect that you may not notice any difference in speed.

 

[LUVourMarriotts]

One common mistake with range extenders is its placement. You want to make sure that you place it where you are still getting a good, productive signal from your wifi source. This will allow that good, productive signal to be extended (with defined loss per product). If you go out to the farthest location you get signal, which isn't good, and put the extender there, you are just extending a bad signal (with defined loss per product), so it will be a waste. HTH

 

[Ron98GT]

Here's a NetGear Wifi range extender:

http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-N300-...&qid=1440522031&sr=1-3&keywords=wifi+extender


I like the dual band that includes 5 GHz:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HHRP11C

 

[SMHarman]

Thanks Taterhed and SMHarman...I'm in a 3 year old home and of course all wiring is new. I do have an unused phone line in my office upstairs (the smallest bedroom). We cut the home phone cord sometime ago and just use our cells. I have fiber optic cable to the house and 50 mbps download speed. My speed tests taken near the modem show I'm getting what I'm paying for. I'm looking ideally for a wireless solution so a home powerline adapter may be what I should explore. There is a Best Buy within 10 minutes drive and on-line they have a good selection including several Netgear models.

In a 3 yr old home you should have CAT5 phone wire. Unscrew the box and check for 8 core cable.
If the other end cam be connected to the modem a wap in that room could be great for coverage.

Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk

 

[PigsDad]

In a 3 yr old home you should have CAT5 phone wire. Unscrew the box and check for 8 core cable.
If the other end cam be connected to the modem a wap in that room could be great for coverage.

Given the age of the house, I agree that it most likely has CAT5 wiring. Adding a Wireless Access Point (WAP) is definitely the best choice here.

If you are interested in the difference between a WAP and a "booster" / "range extender", this article has a good explanation. Bottom line is that a WAP is much faster.

The other option without buying any new equipment is to use the CAT5 wiring to move the modem / wireless router from the first floor to the second floor. Often, the higher you get the wireless router the better it works throughout the whole house. If it would be simple to move, you might give that a try first before investing in additional equipment.

Using a powerline adapter when you have CAT5 wires available to you is a poor choice, IMO.

Kurt

 

[taterhed]

So, that was my point.

If you can convert a phone jack to RJ45 (LAN) and plug one cable modem-direct (via switch or onboard router) and then connect a 'wireless-router' to the other end of the cable (converted phone jack) you'll get much better results.

There are some tips and tricks to this depending on how you eventually connect the whole thing. Easy to do....just need the correct advice.

For reference, most wireless routers can be configured as: Router, Wireless router, AP (Access Point) and more. You don't need to understand all that, just decide if you can get a 'wired connection' from the family room to the upstairs (preferably in the middle of the house somewhere). If so, you're golden. Much better than repeater, bridge or powerline.