Question Could I strengthen wifi signal without wifi network credentials?

[darkz3r0]

Good day everyone,

Last year I went on a holiday in Greece and our room came with free wifi - the signal was very bad in one part of the room and in the other the signal was non existent. This year I thought I would plan ahead and bring a wifi extender or my router ... however, I am not sure if that will work.

Does anyone know if there is a way to make the wifi signal stronger on a wifi where all I will have is the password to connect my devices.

- I have a spare set of 2 TP LINK - Deco X20's and I was wondering if there was any way to get those two or even one of them connected to the wifi in order to get a stronger signal in my room?

Thank you all in advance for any information.

 

[bill001g]

Your main problem is you say the signal is very bad in one part of the room. You can't fix that problem no matter what equipment you place in your room. To fix this you would need to place a device in a area that get good signal it could then create a second repeated signal to send the signal to area that gets bad signal. Maybe outside the room in the hall...but likely not allowed by the hotel.

Now in theory you could take the very bad signal you get and attempt to repeat it inside the room but it likely will not work very well. Any form of repeater is going to interfere with the main signal making is somewhat worse....which is partially why it need a very good signal to begin with.

Tplink repeaters many times run in what is called universal repeater mode which allows them to pretty much connect to anything you have the wifi password to. They run as a router in this case. This though does not solve your problem of not having access to a signal that is good enough to begin with.

 

[darkz3r0]

Well, last year the signal was good enough in one part of the room/apartment, but the further you went away from the door, the weaker the signal.

At home I have the TP Link Deco X20 (two of them) however, one of them requires to be connected to the router/modem via cable (this type of access I will not have at the hotel).

Would it be possible to get a repeater to run in the "good signal" part of the room, just by providing it with the wifi password - or will I need access to the hotel router/modem?

 

[bill001g]

In general a repeater will not work unless the main router has WDS support. This is considered a security violation....pretty much to prevent what you are trying to do. You could hook up a repeater and then allow open access to anyone without a password. WDS is a hack it was never really designed to be used as repeaters do so it is commonly disabled on commercial equipment.


TPlink in particular has a option that runs in what they call universal repeater mode. This makes all your end device appear as a single mac/ip address like a router does to a ISP. This will connect to pretty much any wifi system. There are ways to prevent it but it would not be something that a hotel uses.

Your signal level is likely very marginal so it might work but be very slow.

 

[geofelt]

Can you use a larger/stronger antenna?

 

[darkz3r0]

In general a repeater will not work unless the main router has WDS support. This is considered a security violation....pretty much to prevent what you are trying to do. You could hook up a repeater and then allow open access to anyone without a password. WDS is a hack it was never really designed to be used as repeaters do so it is commonly disabled on commercial equipment.


TPlink in particular has a option that runs in what they call universal repeater mode. This makes all your end device appear as a single mac/ip address like a router does to a ISP. This will connect to pretty much any wifi system. There are ways to prevent it but it would not be something that a hotel uses.

Your signal level is likely very marginal so it might work but be very slow.

thanks for the info

 

[darkz3r0]

Can you use a larger/stronger antenna?

Not really - its for my phone and the kids tablets ...