Wifi Booster/extender

Anyone have a WiFi Booster/Extender? If so what results do you get? Have any thoughts, experiences, opinions, recommendations? Thanks!

 

I have limited personal experience but I have helped set up several and have come to the conclusion you get what you pay for. That is, if you try to go cheap, you likely are going to be unhappy with frequent dropped connections and poor performance. If you "invest" in a good extender, you will have much better connectivity and speeds.

That said, the same applies the base WAP (wireless access point) too. That is, if you invest in a upper-end wireless router, you will get better coverage and performance - enough that you may find you don't even need an extender.

 

I'm using one of these now. Have for a while. I show 12 networks being picked up. My wifi shows as excellent while 4 of the other 12 show good signal strength. We're all out here on half acre to 2 acre lots so some have to be an acre/ acre and a half away. I've had 2 of these. One a used one (gifted) and one I bought 3 or 4 years ago $89 if I remember right, though prices may have come down. This one has actually been knocked over and partially stepped on and survived!

https://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-adapters/WNDA4100.aspx

 

Brand recommendations? Right now all I have is the box provided by AT&T for Uverse. Which I'm sure is old and cheap. In cities where AT&T has fiber optic Uverse it might be good but out in the middle of nowhere Uverse comes in on very old phone lines at a snails pace. Sadly I don't have many choices for internet providers.

 

You could try out a mesh system

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/deco/

 

But fiber optic to the home has absolutely nothing to do with wifi coverage in the home. And phone lines being old means nothing either. Copper is copper and unless loose, the connections (and they are what matter most) even "weather" well. But regardless, the phone lines to the home also have nothing to do with wifi coverage in the home.

We really need to know what it is you are trying to achieve. Do you have a 4 story home you are trying to cover? Or a sprawling ranch style (single story)? What distances are you trying to cover? How many barriers (walls, floors, ceilings) are you trying to get through, what are those barriers made of and what is in them (Metal pipes? Lots of wires?). How many devices?

 

Actually it was the AT&T repair guy that suggested I get a booster. Internet speeds are extremely slow in the country. WiFi signal is weak and ethernet connection is not that much better. Just trying to improve what I have the best I can. The house has phone jacks in most every room so moving the router is not a problem. It just doesn't get much better no matter where I put it. Most of the time there is only one device connected at a time.
Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Sadly, you didn't answer any of my questions.

You have to remember that speeds on your LAN (your side of the gateway device - typically the modem) have nothing to do with the Internet speeds provided by your ISP.

You can operate a 1Gbps LAN in your home, but as soon as you try to access the Internet, it slows to a crawl. So if your ISP is providing lousy speeds, it is not likely you will see any improvement with a booster. Your current ISP speed and that router will still be the bottleneck.

 

Sorry I did not answer all your questions. I guess I took them more as things to consider than things you needed to know. My bad! Anyway your last statement pretty told me what I needed to know about the helpfulness of investing in a booster. Looks like slow internet and weak signals are sadly pretty much as good as it is going to get out here in the country. Streaming lags so much it is not worth trying. Can't blame me for hoping something might help.
Thanks to all who replied!

 

I don't "need" to know them except for the fact you asked for specific devices that might meet your needs.

I think there is still some confusion there. A weak signal will only affect your local wifi network. That has nothing to do with the amount of bandwidth provided by your ISP. It only affects the speeds your wireless devices can communicate with your wireless router.

Here's something you can try. Connect your computer directly to your wireless modem with an Ethernet cable. That "should" give your computer the maximum bandwidth possible. If you are still unhappy with the speeds you get then, then the bottleneck is definitely your ISP. You could look into increasing your service, but that will cost you more per month.

If you get good performance with your Ethernet connection, then you can look at replacing your wireless router with a better one.

We still don't know how big this house is or how many barriers, but most people don't need wife extenders unless they have long distances (like over 50 meters or 150 feet) between the wireless router and the wifi connected computer.

 

Sorry I didn't answer all your questions. I took them more as things to consider. My bad! Your last sentence answered my reason for asking if investing in a booster would help my situation. Looks like I am stuck with being frustrated with not being able to stream videos without constant lagging.
Thanks to all that gave suggestions.

 

Okay. Good luck.

 

Sorry for the double reply with time inbetween. I am on my phone right now and I lost signal so first reply did not post and show up on my end then after posting a reply again the first post shows up. To bad I don't have the option of deleting a post.
Back when I had DSL with AT&T they told me the phone lines here would not support higher speed DSL. Now I have AT&T Uverse and they are only offering the speed I have. So like I said slow speed internet and weak signal wifi.

 

As Digerati tries to explain. There are 2 separate issues.

1. You internet speed ie what is your router synched at on your WAN

2. You LAN speeds be they wifi or otherwise.

As regards point 1. you have not posted any stats as regards up/down speeds so it is difficult to any assessment.

As regards point 2. and more specifically your wifi speeds. Again you have not provided any dets as to your property's layout and specifically where you have an issue.

All in all it is hard for anyone to provide you with any info.

For example. I have fibre to my apartment. Its 40/10. My router is synched at those speeds.

If I connect a pc to the router via ethernet eg cable I get 37 down 9.3 up.

As regards my wifi eg LAN I get 33 down 9 up on my laptop one floor down from my separate WAP about 40 feet away on 5Ghz wave band.

If you provide more info, perhaps then it will be possible to better help you

Good Luck

 

Sorry I was away from my computer all day and busy multitasking using my phone so I apologize for any miscommunication. I understand what each of you are saying. I understand the internet provider determines the speed of internet coming into my home. I understand that placement of router and what might interfere with signal affect WiFi strength.

The router provided by ATT is Arris NVG589. Speed with AT&T Uverse here in my areas speed is suppose to be up to 768 Kbps which is not fast but it is the only speed offered here although AT&T Uverse boast of lightening speeds in cities it is not in the country.

My WiFi upload speed changes but latest test was 0.37 and upload speed was 0.35. Ethernet connection speed is download 0.35 and upload is 0.37.

Digerati ask "We really need to know what it is you are trying to achieve. Do you have a 4 story home you are trying to cover? Or a sprawling ranch style (single story)? What distances are you trying to cover? How many barriers (walls, floors, ceilings) are you trying to get through, what are those barriers made of and what is in them (Metal pipes? Lots of wires?). How many devices?"

My reply was "Just trying to improve what I have the best I can. The house has phone jacks in most every room so moving the router is not a problem. It just doesn't get much better no matter where I put it. Most of the time there is only one device connected at a time."

I am only using internet on one floor of the house but as I said I have moved the router to several places in the house results in little change in signal.
Right now I am sitting 5 feet from the router with no walls or pipes, etc. to interfere with signal and I can't stream video connected Ethernet without lots of lagging.

I was just asking hoping there was something I could do to improve things. As mentioned in first post AT&T suggested a booster.
Thanks.

 

Sorry not first post but earlier post. Wish there was more time to edit a post.

 

I have always found video to be lacking on wifi. Doesn't matter if news stories, music videos or even Majorgeeks "How to Videos". If it is something I really want, I download it then watch offline. People here in this house have tried doing online games on wifi with PlayStation and XBox, when we had dsl coming in and the lag always left their players dead before they even knew they had been hit.

 

This is the problem.
Check with AT&T as well as other service providers whether they provide Mobile Broadband in your area.
If not, you're out of luck.

FWIW I can tether my mobile phone (LG Leon with LTE (150 Mbps)) to my PC via USB, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

 

Agree with Eldon. If your download speed is 768kbps then that is extremely slow.

Is it possible to access the router's GUI and post the stats at which the router is synched at just to confirm.

You are on ADSL and must be extremely far from the exchange to get those speeds.

As Eldon said Mobile Broadband would be something to seriously consider.

Again by way of an example. The router that I am using is a TP Link W9970. It's a cheap unit. The ADSL / Fibre modem is excellent (wifi on it is total c**p and I use a separate wap).

The W9970 has a USB port to which I can connect a mobile broadband dongle for failback ie in case the fibre internet fails, the mobile 3G / 4G kicks in. My 3G speed (old dongle) is about 5Mbps down and 2 up.

Regrettably with your set up your internet connection (WAN) will always be extremely poor and if you want anything better you will have to explore other avenues namely 3G / 4G.

What you would need to do if you wanted to improve this if that is the best ADSL speeds you can get is as follows:

1. What is the mobile reception like in your area?
2. Try to find out how far the nearest tower is to your property and who owns it ie AT&T, other
2. Get your own router, preferably one that has a usb slot like mine and can use 3G / 4G or better still one with a dedicated sim slot
3. Get yourself a cheap 3G dongle from fleebay and a pay as you go data card (depending on which router you buy). The data card that you buy must be one from the service provider from the nearest tower.
4. Plug it all in and see what speeds you get
5. You can improve mobile 3G / 4G speeds considerably with a dedicated external antenna mounted on your roof.

If you do the above and are satisfied with speeds then you can cancel your ADSL broadband and get a mobile 3G /4G data contract instead.

wifi is tricky but is viable. If you are having issues then perhaps your router (if using wifi) or wap needs to be upgraded or perhaps you can use the 5Ghz band instead of the 2.4Ghz band. If you are using an internet service provider router which is usually rubbish then don't expect miracles.

The WAP I use is a Netgear R6120. It's a cheap dual band unit and is very good. I virtually never have any issues of buffering even on my laptop which is 30-40 feet from the wap.

Failing that get a Mesh system.

Good Luck

 

Don't worry about me. I'm good. I was responding to the OP.