Extending an XFINITY public wifi hotspot

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Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 18, 2005
Messages
181
So brief background i'm a Comcast customer. When i goto my girlfriends apartment there is a xfinity wifi hotspot i can connect to if i basically put my laptop against the wall. What i'd like to do is extend this hotspot so i can at least be away from the wall to use it. I tried a basic repeat but it doesn't work. Does anyone have a suggestion how i can extend the signal of the Xfinity hotspot??
 
Ask her neighbor to relocate their cable modem so you get a better signal? Do you think they even know they are a hot spot?

Not very helpful, but if you knew who it is and they were cooperative, it might be a solution.
 
Ask her neighbor to relocate their cable modem so you get a better signal? Do you think they even know they are a hot spot?

Not very helpful, but if you knew who it is and they were cooperative, it might be a solution.

Not an option. I'd like to address this through hardware not asking neighbors to please re-arrange their networking equipment so i can get my free internet that they likely do not know they are providing.
 
Not an option. I'd like to address this through hardware not asking neighbors to please re-arrange their networking equipment so i can get my free internet that they likely do not know they are providing.

Well that's not possible. You can't make a weak wireless signal stronger with another device. A repeater is only going to be as fast as speed of the connection coming into it. Your Girlfriend might have to pay for her own internet.
 
Make a cantenna and figure out which direction to point it for the best signal. You'll probably need a new WiFi adapter for the laptop that will allow you to connect an external antenna. It you can connect the cantenna to a router, though Comcast make be taking steps to recent that from working correctly.

Comcast sets up shit tons of their own customers to be access points for everyone else, in theory it doesn't affect the customers band witch at all. Abuse it all you want.
 
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Well that's not possible. You can't make a weak wireless signal stronger with another device. A repeater is only going to be as fast as speed of the connection coming into it. Your Girlfriend might have to pay for her own internet.

Well the wireless signal against one wall is great. I could theoretically place a repeater there.
 
Repeaters cut the bandwidth in half. What speed to do you have with your laptop on the wall? The repeater speed should be half that.
 
You have to log in to the hotspot, right? Maybe that is why a repeater isn't working for you. I don't think I've ever actually used a repeater due to the negatives, but I thought I they had to actually connect to the network to rebroadcast it.

If you really want to make it a project, maybe you could build a rPi with a pair of wireless adapters and build your own goofy bridge with it.

Otherwise, a better antenna on your laptop (like the cantenna, or something else) is probably your best bet.
 
What do you need to extend it to? If you're picking it up with a laptop and need it on another laptop, you can use internet connection sharing and an Ethernet cable. (Or share it to a USB wifi device) If you are trying to use a router I'm not so sure you'd be able to get through the splash page to sign in. I think they might be looking at rolling out a WPA2-Enterprise solution which would allow you to put your credentials into a device and then it might work with some routers.
 
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