Suggestions for a WiFi extender (Technicolor router)

[neville9]

Hello all,

I'm from Mumbai, India and have a Technicolor TC2700 modem provided by my ISP (Hathway) giving speeds upto 50 MBPS. As the modem is wired, I'm unable to move it around and suffer from poor signal strength (3 or 4 bars out of 5) in the room I use my laptop/Chromecast and feel like my speed/connectivity suffers because of that.

I'm not very tech-savvy but I just ordered a TP-link range extender from Amazon India: TP-Link TL-WA850RE 300Mbps Universal WiFi Range Extender (White) which would arrive by tomorrow, however I just read a review that states it's a single band extender, whereas my router is dual-band I believe. So I'm not sure if I made the best choice... also, this is a 300MBPS extender whereas my modem gives speeds only upto 250MBPS I think.. (not too sure of all this, just read some stuff on the net)

Do you guys think this extender would work just fine or should I get a better extender? Would a second wireless router be a better option vs an extender? (although I'm not sure if the Technicolor modem can be bridged).

Thanks in advance!

- Neville

 

[Pooneil]

The extender you've picked may work just fine or it may not work very well. This is true for all extenders. You really just have to try and see if it will work well enough for you. Place it where the signal is good and it see if it solves the streaming problems.

A more likely to help technology would be powerline networking adapters connected to a wifi access point in the other end of the home. The workability of this can also vary, but is more likely to get you the wifi service you want through the home.

Of course the best would be to use wired ethernet if you can.

 

[neville9]

The extender you've picked may work just fine or it may not work very well. This is true for all extenders. You really just have to try and see if it will work well enough for you. Place it where the signal is good and it see if it solves the streaming problems.

A more likely to help technology would be powerline networking adapters connected to a wifi access point in the other end of the home. The workability of this can also vary, but is more likely to get you the wifi service you want through the home.

Of course the best would be to use wired ethernet if you can.

Hi Pooneil... thanks for your response! I shall go with powerline adapters if the extender doesn't work. When you say use wired ethernet, how can I use ethernet for stuff like Chromecast or smartphones?

 

[Pooneil]

The ethernet is to extend the network to a wireless access point. Which is what the powerline networking does.

 

[neville9]

The ethernet is to extend the network to a wireless access point. Which is what the powerline networking does.

Thought power line networking use the home's electric wiring and not separate Ethernet cables?

 

[neville9]

I set up the TP-Link Extender today, and it seems to be working fine. However, after some trial-and-error, I noticed that although the extender gives excellent signal (5/5 bars on laptop vs 3-4/5 without the extender), the download speed has dropped to 50-60% of the full potential speed of my router that I'd get when the laptop is very close to it. I knew about this, and don't really mind as I still get 25-30Mbps download speeds. However, I'm curious as to where is the best place to plug in the extender (I know I should put it somewhere between the laptop and router where signal strength is good), but I want to know the best place. So, is there a free software that can show me signal strength/speed/SNR, etc. to determine this?

Thanks again!

 

[ravensj15]

if you have an android you can download an app called WiFi analyzer and it tells you the strength of the signal. i had that same extender and it would max out at 14 mbps but my router would get out 25-35 mbps. i had better results with a netgear extender (NETGEAR N300 Wi-Fi Range Extender, Essentials Edition (EX2700))