[SOLVED] Need Suggestion for Extending Public Wifi Signal.

hotfusion

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Apr 23, 2016
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Hi,
In my place, there is a wireless service provider which is very cheap, only $3 per month. But in my room the wifi signal is horrible. So currently I setup my router (TP-Link WR740N) in client mode, put it where the signal is good and then connect it to my PC via ethernet cable.

But, it has lots of problems, the speed is only about 20-30 mbps and tends to be very unstable sometimes. If I use my phone as an wi-fi extender instead and put it right beside the router, the speed and stability is much better (60-90 mbps) than the router

To solve this issue, I am planning to buy a cheap dual band router hoping it would be better than the one I have right now. So my question is, is there a better solution for this? A device which can do the job better ?

Any suggestion is appreciated, thanks.

PS : The wi-fi has captive portal and I solve this using mac address cloning.
 
Solution
A dual band router just means it runs on the 5G band also. It may be faster if the provider also uses that radio band but the signals tend to be weaker because it is absorbed more easily by walls and even the air.

This all depends on where the wifi signal is coming from. You can get outdoor directional bridge equipment from companies like ubiquiti. Their nanostation loco devices are about $50. You need to buy 2.4g or 5g they are not dual band. This works best when you can place a antenna outside and see the location the signal is coming from. Indoors it is hard to say if directional equipment will help. The signal maybe bouncing off walls to get to you.
A dual band router just means it runs on the 5G band also. It may be faster if the provider also uses that radio band but the signals tend to be weaker because it is absorbed more easily by walls and even the air.

This all depends on where the wifi signal is coming from. You can get outdoor directional bridge equipment from companies like ubiquiti. Their nanostation loco devices are about $50. You need to buy 2.4g or 5g they are not dual band. This works best when you can place a antenna outside and see the location the signal is coming from. Indoors it is hard to say if directional equipment will help. The signal maybe bouncing off walls to get to you.
 
Solution

hotfusion

Distinguished
Apr 23, 2016
48
1
18,545
A dual band router just means it runs on the 5G band also. It may be faster if the provider also uses that radio band but the signals tend to be weaker because it is absorbed more easily by walls and even the air.

This all depends on where the wifi signal is coming from. You can get outdoor directional bridge equipment from companies like ubiquiti. Their nanostation loco devices are about $50. You need to buy 2.4g or 5g they are not dual band. This works best when you can place a antenna outside and see the location the signal is coming from. Indoors it is hard to say if directional equipment will help. The signal maybe bouncing off walls to get to you.
Thank you for replying. Yes I was thinking maybe it will work better on a 5ghz band, my current router supports only 2.4Ghz so I was assuming that was the issue. My phone reports the wi-fi as 2.4g/5g so I think it works on both bands.

I look up the nanostation loco's but they all costs more than $100 here. I found a similar (I think) TP-Link device which costs around $50 but the problem is I have no prior experience with these kind of device. Does the setup require admin access to the ISP's router?

Also, the TP Link one seem to work on 5ghz only but I don't know how well the wifi work on that band. Link to the device incase you want to check it out - https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-networking/outdoor-radio/cpe510/
 

kanewolf

Titan
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Thank you for replying. Yes I was thinking maybe it will work better on a 5ghz band, my current router supports only 2.4Ghz so I was assuming that was the issue. My phone reports the wi-fi as 2.4g/5g so I think it works on both bands.

I look up the nanostation loco's but they all costs more than $100 here. I found a similar (I think) TP-Link device which costs around $50 but the problem is I have no prior experience with these kind of device. Does the setup require admin access to the ISP's router?

Also, the TP Link one seem to work on 5ghz only but I don't know how well the wifi work on that band. Link to the device incase you want to check it out - https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-networking/outdoor-radio/cpe510/
I have a nanostation M2 -- Verify that you are looking at the M2 or M5 -- NOT the AC version. Only the M2 and M5 work with regular WIFI. The locoAC only work in pairs. The nanostation (and I believe the TP-Link) don't require any setup on the sender side. They are receivers just like your phone.
I don't know how easy the TP-Link is to setup. The nanostations are pretty simple.
 
I have not used that device but it appears to work similar to the ubiquiti.

It should connect to the ISP device. This one like ubiquiti can run in router mode. That lets you hide all your devices behind a single mac and ip address. The ISP should think it is a single end machine connecting.
 

hotfusion

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Apr 23, 2016
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I have a nanostation M2 -- Verify that you are looking at the M2 or M5 -- NOT the AC version. Only the M2 and M5 work with regular WIFI. The locoAC only work in pairs. The nanostation (and I believe the TP-Link) don't require any setup on the sender side. They are receivers just like your phone.
I don't know how easy the TP-Link is to setup. The nanostations are pretty simple.
I have not used that device but it appears to work similar to the ubiquiti.

It should connect to the ISP device. This one like ubiquiti can run in router mode. That lets you hide all your devices behind a single mac and ip address. The ISP should think it is a single end machine connecting.
I'm just gonna quote you both, thanks for your suggestions. I connected to the wifi on my phone and use an app called WifiAnalyzer and it seems that it is indeed 5G if I am at the living room where the signal is good (and also where I currently placed my router), but if I am at my bedroom where the wifi is barely usable, it switches to 2.4G. So the TP-Link 5ghz CPE should do the job and I also watched a video on how they set it up. It looks even simpler than configuring my router with DD-WRT firmware lol.

The only hesitation I have now is do I really need it? In my living room, my phone can get a full strength signal on the 5G band. Will a wifi repeater such as this work just fine as well. It's a dual band and cheaper too. Sorry, I am so broke. :D
 
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The problem with a repeater is that most require the source of the wifi to have a feature called WDS activated. Wifi includes the mac addresses as part of the encryption keys. It was designed to only allow single point to point communication, partially for security reasons. To pass multiple machines over a encrypted session they use a trick called WDS. This is not actually part of the wifi standard but is supported by many devices. It is generally considered a security exposure so it is off by default on many devices.

What this means is if WDS is not enabled you will need a repeater that can run in router mode. I forget which ones can do that. When they run in router mode they use the mac address of router and use nat to hide the real mac/ip addreses.
 
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