Wireless network repeaters

RegisterMe · Post by **RegisterMe** » Wed, 18. Oct 17, 18:12

Can anybody recommend a good one?

Redvers Ganderpoke · Post by **Redvers Ganderpoke** » Wed, 18. Oct 17, 18:34

Nope.

I'd tried several and they all had problems - just bought a better wifi AP in the end (Unifi).

felter · Post by **felter** » Wed, 18. Oct 17, 18:47

What is it you are actually hoping to do. I mean is it to fill in a dead spot in the house, or to extend the distance outside. We got taught about them at college but no one uses them nowadays.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Wed, 18. Oct 17, 19:16

As felter points out, application is key - Why do you need one? (Used to be, back in the day, you could just buy a better antenna for what you had. Not appropriate for all situations, but might be better than buying a repeater.)

RegisterMe · Post by **RegisterMe** » Wed, 18. Oct 17, 20:18

Thanks guys. For some reason (possibly related to concrete and rebar in the construction) wireless reception in my place is unreliable. The router is on the ground floor. Reception on the first floor is normally ok, reception on the second is flaky. So I was hoping there was a widget I could install to reliably extend the network to the top of the house.

burger1 · Post by **burger1** » Wed, 18. Oct 17, 20:28

Would setting up 2 routers be better?

Bridging routers work? Use an old extra router to bridge?

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Wed, 18. Oct 17, 20:35

I considered getting a wireless extender, went for Ethernet over power-line instead, and it works brilliantly.

I bought a pair of NETGEAR PLP1200-100UKS 1200 Mbps Powerline Ethernet Adapters from Amazon, and used it to connect my home office upstairs to our internet. Plus it let me move our NAS upstairs too.

Have not regretted it, streaming is great, on and off site, and I get great speed on my desktop PC.

I do have a separate wireless network upstairs connected to it, but that's only upstairs.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Wed, 18. Oct 17, 22:14

RegisterMe wrote:Thanks guys. For some reason (possibly related to concrete and rebar in the construction) wireless reception in my place is unreliable. The router is on the ground floor. Reception on the first floor is normally ok, reception on the second is flaky. So I was hoping there was a widget I could install to reliably extend the network to the top of the house.

Is there any way you could move the wireless router upstairs? You usually get better reception the higher up you put these things anyway, and having the thing more-or-less central in the house would help as well.

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Wed, 18. Oct 17, 22:27

Like mrbadger I went the extended wired route with a TP-Link 600 ... cheap and extremely effective .... wifi same floor ...rest wired...

felter · Post by **felter** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 01:40

As other have said, look into setting up an access point using the power lines in your house.

Myself on the other hand would probably go for something like laying a new cat cable, connected to a switch (you could miss the switch out) with a Cisco wap561 connected to it, but that's just me and I would do it just so I could play around with the 561. The only problem with my way is it's a pain in the arse to lay the cable (if not already there) and it's expensive, the 561 alone costs nearly £200. One of these days I'll get one, or something similar.

BigBANGtheory · Post by **BigBANGtheory** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 10:41

The better option in your home is to use a Powerline adapter(s) with built in Wifi, I use the Devolo 1200+ system and it works well. Externally you are better off running a shielded cable or a dedicated antenna for point to point or the area of coverage you need.

Antilogic · Post by **Antilogic** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 11:19

Not really. I would put down Cat5 or run over mains power to another AP.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 14:37

Just a note: I've found it easier to run neatly installed network cable in a multi-story home than a single-story one. If WiFi is exclusively needed, it may be better to run a networked setup than repeaters.

Running network over power lines was, at one time, "a thing" in the States, but I think it was short-lived, going the same way of "DSL" for the most part. Because of problems with it in the infancy of the tech, I'm not a fan of it. But, it may be much more reliable these days and much more popular in other parts of the world.

Post by **korio** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 14:48

Morkonan wrote:Just a note: I've found it easier to run neatly installed network cable in a multi-story home than a single-story one. If WiFi is exclusively needed, it may be better to run a networked setup than repeaters.

Running network over power lines was, at one time, "a thing" in the States, but I think it was short-lived, going the same way of "DSL" for the most part. Because of problems with it in the infancy of the tech, I'm not a fan of it. But, it may be much more reliable these days and much more popular in other parts of the world.

For home purposes its pretty common here on Spain to use the network over power lines adapters, i even have some at my work.

Also the OP should check the "power" of his wifi receiver, usually they are of around 0.5 amps, i found one very cheap in the past when i still used wifi for my PC that had 2 amps and it worked wonderfully, no problem even at 5 or more floors over the router.

If its for home use, i dont think he would find anything cheaper than that, mine was only 20€.

Redvers Ganderpoke · Post by **Redvers Ganderpoke** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 15:00

RegisterMe wrote:Thanks guys. For some reason (possibly related to concrete and rebar in the construction) wireless reception in my place is unreliable. The router is on the ground floor. Reception on the first floor is normally ok, reception on the second is flaky. So I was hoping there was a widget I could install to reliably extend the network to the top of the house.

The Unifi one I used replaced 3 N routers I had around the house (linked via powerline devices one upstairs, two down (front and back). It manages to give very good coverage from the first floor - I did mean to install it on the ground floor ceiling ( run a cable through the floorsapce ) as its POE but in the end just installed it on the wall in one of the upstairs room as the coverage seemed to be fine.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 18:58

you can get powerline adapters with wifi built in, so there's that option. The question I had with those was whether the built in wifi would be faster then a dedicated wifi box connected to a powerline adapter, and I already had a Wifi box to use.

but by using powerline you have plenty of options. I have a switch connected to mine upstairs, then my wifi (an Apple Airport), and my NAS, and PC.

Not skimping on the base powerline system is the thing, buying cheap is a mistake, get the best you can afford.

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 18:59

pjknibbs wrote:Is there any way you could move the wireless router upstairs? You usually get better reception the higher up you put these things anyway, and having the thing more-or-less central in the house would help as well.

That makes the most sense to me, cheapest to probably...

RegisterMe · Post by **RegisterMe** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 19:11

The problem then becomes how to connect the wireless router (which is also the main cat 5 router for my PC) to the broadband connection.

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 19:40

Not really, just et one of these Wifi Dongles.

I think...

Edit: ah I see now, and realise I misunderstood what you were saying there. I had a similar issue and connected with a 15m WHITE Premium CAT6 Network Cable. Everything is working as fine as can be expected, considering my crap ISP!

RegisterMe · Post by **RegisterMe** » Thu, 19. Oct 17, 20:07

The point of extending the wireless network was to avoid cabling

. That having been said I think going powerline / ethernet over power is probably the answer.

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Wireless network repeaters

Wireless network repeaters