How to extend my wireless network

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mrwill

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 26, 2005
Messages
174
I have a 3 story house and my cable modem/router is located on the top floor. I need to extend wireless coverage to the bottom floor, and it would be almost impossible to run an ethernet cable there. My cable plan for dl/ul is 20.0/1.0.
Someone suggested Hawking Industries, so found THIS. It is a HWREN2 and sells for about $90. Is this a good choice? If not, is there something better?
 
mrwill said:
I have a 3 story house and my cable modem/router is located on the top floor. I need to extend wireless coverage to the bottom floor, and it would be almost impossible to run an ethernet cable there. My cable plan for dl/ul is 20.0/1.0.
Someone suggested Hawking Industries, so found THIS. It is a HWREN2 and sells for about $90. Is this a good choice? If not, is there something better?
Click to expand...

I personally hate wireless bridges (or "range extenders" as they like to call them, because the public doesn't understand what a bridge is. They're basically just a wireless signal repeater). They tend to destroy wireless throughput and make your network more susceptible to interference. As a result they can provide spotty WiFi coverage in certain situations.

I would actually recommend using a HomePlug ethernet-over-power-lines solution instead. You don't need to run Ethernet cable; you already have wiring run through your house for your power, and HomePlug has become pretty reliable (I trust it far more than wireless, let me put it that way, and it's also more secure).

If you absolutely need wireless downstairs, use HomePlug adapters upstairs at your router and downstairs wherever you want to have wireless, then just run an ethernet patch cable from the HomePlug to the switch port of a cheap WiFi router or wireless access point.

The wireless bridge could work for you, but I've found them more trouble than they're worth.
 
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^ yeah extenders are garbage. Good suggestion with the adapters. With recent ones you can get close to 100mbs if you electrical is good. Enough for a good wireless N ap to hang off of.
 
I ordered the home wiring adapters, but had one more question. I can connect my laptop directly with an ethernet cable to the second adapter, but can I also connect a router with wifi and then broadcast a wifi signal to the bottom floor?
 
Yes and Yes. It would be better to disable dhcp on the downstairs wireless router, then plug the ethernet over power adapter to a lan port on the downstairs router. Then you would keep all your devices on the same network.
 
awesomo said:
Yes and Yes. It would be better to disable dhcp on the downstairs wireless router, then plug the ethernet over power adapter to a lan port on the downstairs router. Then you would keep all your devices on the same network.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this, make sure the wireless settings are the same for encryption and SSID but change the channel on the second AP to something across the range. Then you'll have an ESSID instead of a BSSID, that will perform to a much higher degree than simply putting in a repeater unit.
 
Actually, I have an old Linksys WRT54 with DD-WRT firmware. I thought I would use that and boost the signal a bit to get a strong signal downstairs.
 
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Even if I don't boost the signal, I think I would like to test the concept out using an old router that I have. The test I would do is to check signal strength as is (signal from upstairs). Then I would connect Ethernet over home wiring and connect the old router and then re-test the signal strength.

My question is this - will the router work just by plugging it into the ethernet port on the Ethernet over home wiring box? Will I need to change something in the setup of the router?
 
I used to hate repeaters, but for dual-band setups, you can dedicate the G channel to purely range-extending duties. I bought a unit for my brother, but haven't set it up yet.
 
You can use the unifi ap's. You need to have 1 wired(obviously) then plug in the additional ap's(iirc 2 per wired ap) and then you can stash them. They do need to have the latest firmware as well. I've got one setup like this at the house. I have not noticed a speed decrease but may not have been off of the lone unit.

Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16r9CoTdRqo
 
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