Extending WiFi range

[v1ru5879]

I am confined to Wind stream ISP in my area and have the bonded dsl sagemcom 4320 modem/router. I have poor signal upstairs. Would I be best off using a Ethernet over power setup to get better signal upstairs and have ports for hardwired connections.

 

[bill001g]

Powerline network equipment tend to be the simplest to extend a network. you would need to buy a powerline unit that has wifi in the remote device or plug a AP into the remote powerline.

I would look at av2- based unit instead of the older av200 or av500. The newer technology is faster..which many not matter since you only have dsl...but it tend to work better in most houses. Some of the older stuff had more issues when you ran on different power breakers etc. There is not a huge difference in price.

 

[v1ru5879]

Powerline network equipment tend to be the simplest to extend a network. you would need to buy a powerline unit that has wifi in the remote device or plug a AP into the remote powerline.

I would look at av2- based unit instead of the older av200 or av500. The newer technology is faster..which many not matter since you only have dsl...but it tend to work better in most houses. Some of the older stuff had more issues when you ran on different power breakers etc. There is not a huge difference in price.

What about using another router to do a wireless bridge? Or is it even worth the effort to do that?

 

[bill001g]

If you mean plugged into the remote powerline, yes almost any router can be used as a AP but you do not have to actually bridge it.

If you mean as some form of wireless extender it needs a special feature but a wireless repeater main problem is placement. You can not just put upstairs since it would get the same crappy signal your pc does and then repeat it. It would have to be placed in a good signal area and be able to transmit to the poor area....which may not be possible if the ceiling is causing the problem.

I would go the powerline route. It is much better than any other option to solve this....other than a real ethernet cable.

 

[v1ru5879]

If you mean plugged into the remote powerline, yes almost any router can be used as a AP but you do not have to actually bridge it.

If you mean as some form of wireless extender it needs a special feature but a wireless repeater main problem is placement. You can not just put upstairs since it would get the same crappy signal your pc does and then repeat it. It would have to be placed in a good signal area and be able to transmit to the poor area....which may not be possible if the ceiling is causing the problem.

I would go the powerline route. It is much better than any other option to solve this....other than a real ethernet cable.

Thank you, I will look into the powerline adapters now. I do like that I can essentially extend the system with additional adapters across the whole house

 

[bill001g]

Be careful about buying too many extra powerline adapters. They share the bandwidth on the electrical network but because of the overhead the total bandwidth is decreased.

 

[v1ru5879]

Be careful about buying too many extra powerline adapters. They share the bandwidth on the electrical network but because of the overhead the total bandwidth is decreased.

So then it would be best to stick with one and move it around the house accordingly?

 

[bill001g]

If you can live with that. It may not matter since the powerline units are likely much faster than your internet connection. If it would degrade it to say 120mbps and you only have 25mbps of internet then you would not be affected.

 

[v1ru5879]

If you can live with that. It may not matter since the powerline units are likely much faster than your internet connection. If it would degrade it to say 120mbps and you only have 25mbps of internet then you would not be affected.

I could only dream of seeing that kinda speed in my area. Last night connected directly to router on my laptop I got 18mbps. I found this
TP-Link AV600 Nano Powerline ethernet Adapter Starter Kit, Powerline speeds up to 600Mbps (TL-PA4010KIT)

That should be plenty for my need

 

[bill001g]

That should work....tplink makes things very confusing. They make a av500 unit with exactly the same part number but the av600 unit is based on av2 standard so is better.

 

[v1ru5879]

That should work....tplink makes things very confusing. They make a av500 unit with exactly the same part number but the av600 unit is based on av2 standard so is better.

I will get this ordered here within the next week or so and I will see what it can do for me