WiFi boosters/extenders?

RapidDog

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 7, 2019
Messages
144
I really annoyed with my Spectrum WiFi at home.
I’ve upgraded to their latest router and equipment tat resides in the office in the house and still the connection drops off when I’m out in my garage when using my iPhone to cruise the internet.
No particular reason. I’ve reset the router countless times. Spectrum isn’t much help...

So, I’ve seen these pricey WiFi extenders at Costco and NewEgg.
I haven’t a clue how they work or how hard they are to set up. I am admitted noob at this sort of thing.
Any help and suggestions on these will be helpful.
 
I really annoyed with my Spectrum WiFi at home.
I’ve upgraded to their latest router and equipment tat resides in the office in the house and still the connection drops off when I’m out in my garage when using my iPhone to cruise the internet.
No particular reason. I’ve reset the router countless times. Spectrum isn’t much help...

So, I’ve seen these pricey WiFi extenders at Costco and NewEgg.
I haven’t a clue how they work or how hard they are to set up. I am admitted noob at this sort of thing.
Any help and suggestions on these will be helpful.

I had good results with the TP-LINK Powerline Extenders. However, it wasn't perfect. In the end the best solution for me was getting a mesh WiFi setup in the house.
 
Well the TP-Link AV1300 seemed to do the job. Easy set up for sure.
I have 5G now in the garage. Only drawback is it played hell with my favorite NPR station on the FM receiver...static.
 
Should you want to, you could stream that NPR station over your smartphone/bluetooth speaker.
Many NPR stations have a web stream player on their web site or have a dedicated streaming app that you can install and use.
 
Well I spoke too soon. The dropping out of the WiFi started again...
Maybe it’s just my iPhone.
Had to unplug the units and reset my house WiFi as it went whack.
Had to reset Netflix on the TV too.
Guess I’ll be sending it back.
 
In the existence of wireless gateways, there has only been one that’s any good. The odds are that you don’t have a good one.

Buy your own modem and wireless router.

I myself am using a wireless gateway from Comcast because the gateway + 3 mesh pods are included in the cost for having unlimited data with gigabit connection. But I can’t select my own DNS server on the gateway/router side, so that really sucks.
 
Buy a Motorola modem and upgrade to Ubiquiti access points. Spectrum in our area had horrible packet issues and would drop connections like clockwork.
When we received AT&T gig fiber service we switched and have never been more excited. Our company offers server services and a symmetric upload/dl was a necessity. Plus having a consistent ping under 20 makes a huge difference when gaming online.
https://www.microcenter.com/category/4294966873/wireless-access-points
 

TP-Link AC1200 WiFi Extender (RE300) i just ordered one of these for my dad . Lives in tri level home and router is a asus ac one.​

He is lacking wifi in bedroom opposite side of house .
Kitchen right next to room has wifi i hope this will extend it enough.
 
Buy a Motorola modem and upgrade to Ubiquiti access points. Spectrum in our area had horrible packet issues and would drop connections like clockwork.
When we received AT&T gig fiber service we switched and have never been more excited. Our company offers server services and a symmetric upload/dl was a necessity. Plus having a consistent ping under 20 makes a huge difference when gaming online.
https://www.microcenter.com/category/4294966873/wireless-access-points

This. WiFi extenders are always bad solutions now that mesh systems are available and the APs aren't much more costly than a decent extender would be and without the disadvantage of halving the bandwidth for each hop/extender and introducing more congestion. Also, range of any one AP is going to be about the same regardless of its advertised range; they're all limited by the same (FCC mandated) power output and the superfluous antenna designs don't do much when the end device still can't respond to a received signal because of its own limitations and there's still other interference (walls, RF noise, electronics, etc.) to kill the signal.

At least the Ubiquity Long-Range AP I have doesn't perform any better than the standard/Lite APs I have since I have concrete/brick walls throughout my house and they all kill WiFi signals just the same regardless of how good the AP is, which is why I have 4 of them in my house and think I may need a 5th still. My LR AP may work better if I was in a typical stick-built home with drywall, so YMMV as always with these "long range" APs and the environment you deploy them in.
 
I went from my own modems and a router box to my own modem and unifi router and level 3 POE switch when DOCSIS 3.1 became available at my address. My house is heavily built like T4rd's so I have 6 of the AP's, though 2 of them are outside so I can have good wifi while mowing and working in the gardens etc. It also means I can go quite some distance down the road and have a little more time to remember to turn mobile data back on. In my town AT&T fiber only exists in a very small part of it. Comcast allegedly will sell me 2gbps symmetrical at this address but the installation fee and inconvenience to my neighbors (almost everyone has big dogs like mine that require long walks twice a day, underground utilities) it's not worth it yet. AT&T used to offer "12" mbps to my address but this year they changed the ad to "10" mbps dsl

Getting comcast to replace the direct burial line from the tap to the box on the side of my house was on ordeal that took 6 van rolls before some dude with a black instead of a red shirt had authority to order a 3rd party ditch witch thing to come put a new line under my driveway. The utility companies came and spray painted all the other crap under the driveway and the sprinkler dude painted where the wires from the sprinkler controller goes to the big box of valves and yet still the contractor hit the bundle of wires to the sprinkler valves. Getting them to pay for the $900 repair was only a little onerous though. I really, really don't want to do that again anytime soon.
 
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I upgraded my gateway from Comcast since I got that unlimited data with the gateway included in package. MoCA, the best way to mesh wired without running ethernet cables. I got these MoCA devices (and switches) to hook up my devices that runs horribly either due to speed, the mesh "xpods" only has a max speed of 35 Mbp, or the devices are stuck between two zones could lose connectivity jumping from one device to the other.

I got these MoCA 2.5 Gbps endpoint costs ~$50 on Amazon; it's MoCA 2.5 but with a gigabit ethernet. I get 997 Mbps on this.
 
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