Setting up home network (wireless), need to extend range

S

SiliconSwitch

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 6, 2006
Messages
233
My family and I are moving into a new house and I want to make sure the wireless network is going to reach everywhere (the house is big). I'll be getting an N router but I'm not sure that will cover it all, could I get some sort of access point that I can place somewhere in the house to boost the signal to go further? Could someone please recommend a product that does this.

Thank you.
 
Firstly what is the square footage of the house. Anything under 2000 square feet that isn't stone, concrete, or has huge metal beams in the walls will be covered by a single MIMO router just fine.

If you find that that isn't good enough my recommendations would be

1: Get a router that has external antennas and replace them with 9-12dBi antennas. Pretty cheap and boosts the signal quite a bit.

2: Run a single drop to the other side of the house and drop in a second AP to build a mesh network. You could do this with powerline or MoCA adapters if putting drops in is out of the question.

DO NOT USE WIRELESS REPEATERS. These are terrible and I wish that they would get taken off the market. Just remember if you have a crappy signal and then put in a wireless repeater you are just boosting a weak signal. Even if you put the repeater inside of -80dba with a good SNR you are still cutting your bandwidth to clients connected to the repeater in half if not less.
 
yeah aggreed.. wireless repeaters dont work..

ive had great success using apple airport extreme + airport expresses all over for clients of mine... expensive but easy and reliable
 
Thanks for your great response C7J0yc3! That's exactly what I thought about the repeaters, how can you turn little into a better signal, doesn't make sense. I'm not sure of the exact square footage but I will definitely give it a go with one router. If that doesn't work I will consider the two options you mentioned which both seem like very good ideas. Thanks again.
 
Get a TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND router and a TP-LINK TL-WA901ND access point. $102 for the two shipped to your door.

You can set up the router just like any other router, the range is good, it is a gigabit switch and it has a USB port that you can plug a hard drive into and have an instant NAS.

The access point supports passive POE so you can run a single CAT5e drop to anywhere you want and not have to worry about powering the device.

Run the router on channel 1 and run the access point on channel 11 with identical security profiles and you will have a wireless network that you can access anywhere in the house with excellent signal strength.

The other option you have is set up the router, and then set up the access point as a "bridge with AP enabled". Place the access point somewhere in the house where you already get good WIFI from the router and it'll expand your network coverage. Doing it this way will not require a CAT5e connection to the access point at all, and you will end up with a usable ethernet port wherever you place the access point.

If you use one AP for the entire house it'll prolly work, but you will end up being on the fringe in certain places and experience low throughput. Using 2 AP's you will end up with good to excellent signal everywhere. Plus, $102 for the entire 2 AP setup, and you end up ready for a NAS too! For $102 you might as well do it right the first time.
 
Last edited:
Could someone point me in the direction of a good 9-12dbi antenna? What kind of price range are we talking?

Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top