Outdoor wifi range extender - tech-ignorant....

Mister Sandman

Commendable
May 24, 2016
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I am tech-ignorant. now that we've got that out of the way 😀 I need some help in figuring out the easiest solution for my application.
I need to extend my wifi in my property, radius of about 500ft. Use will mainly be smartphone/tablet connection to stream (no downloads) and browsing. I have no voice or data reception where I live so i have landline and a netgear WNDR4500.
what is the most effective and simple solution (possibly basically a plug-and-play or almost...)?
Thank you all for your help
 
Solution
There isn't a good solution for WIFI from a phone at that distance. As @bill001g said a directional access point like this -- www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833168115 on each of the four exterior sides of the central building wired back to the primary router is the best you can do. Put the four units on the fascia of the roof for maximum height.

I suppose you could bury ethernet cable 80m (leaving plenty of slack in the max length spec) out from the central building and put an access point at the end of each of those wires. That would give you five access points (one at the central building and four from the cables). Those access points would be omni-directional like this --...
500ft is a long way even outside. Partially you distance will be limited by neighbors also using wireless causing interference. If for example you are on the edge of your property but near a neighbors house the signals they are transmitting likely will be stronger than anything you can install.

You can look at 2 companies for products that might meet your needs. Engenius and ubiquiti Both sell outdoor AP and other equipment. You might get by with a outdoor AP with a omni antenna but you are over the distance limit for that type of equipment....at least when you are not running large directional antenna on the remote end. You could buy multiple direction AP and put a number of them together to form cover different areas of your property.

Mostly your problem is going to be the tiny antenna and very low output power on the phone and tablets which you can do little about.
 
There isn't a good solution for WIFI from a phone at that distance. As @bill001g said a directional access point like this -- www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833168115 on each of the four exterior sides of the central building wired back to the primary router is the best you can do. Put the four units on the fascia of the roof for maximum height.

I suppose you could bury ethernet cable 80m (leaving plenty of slack in the max length spec) out from the central building and put an access point at the end of each of those wires. That would give you five access points (one at the central building and four from the cables). Those access points would be omni-directional like this -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833168118
 
Solution