Colleague's Sky router needs range extended

MarcLister · 19 May 2012 at 18:50

A colleague of mine has a Sky router (Netgear I think) but the wireless signal isn't reaching his son's room and needs to be boosted. He was originally thinking of buying something to extend the wireless range but I'm now wondering about a Homeplug instead. I assume the Sky Netgear router would have spare sockets on the back to allow a Homeplug to be used at the router end and then have the other Homeplug in my colleague's son's room?

My colleague tells me the walls are quite thick hence my leaning towards recommending a Homeplug system to use a wired network rather than a wireless system.

Can anyone recommend any other solutions to the problem? If a Homeplug is the best, what make/brand are the best? My colleague's son is about 9 and we're talking a PC and a PS3 so I doubt massive bandwidth is required.

Nightglow · 19 May 2012 at 19:04

I would recommend these TP-Link AV200, superb homeplugs.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-032-TP

MarcLister · 19 May 2012 at 19:06

Cheers Nightglow. Can't see much wrong with the price there.

I'll tell my colleague about the homeplugs on Monday.

Nightglow · 19 May 2012 at 19:12

No idea with regards to PS3 bandwidth, someone will know that answer.

But, they also do a 500Mb version (TP-Link AV 500) at £71:9p, but doubt you need them , but as I said I know nothing PS3's.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-044-TP

HangTime · 21 May 2012 at 02:18

PS3 bandwidth usage will be minimal with exception of downloading updates and streaming HD content (the latter of which can be flakey on wireless anyway).

MarcLister · 21 May 2012 at 06:28

HangTime said:
PS3 bandwidth usage will be minimal with exception of downloading updates and streaming HD content (the latter of which can be flakey on wireless anyway).

As I recall, my colleague said he wouldn't allow his son to do too much downloading so the £40 TP-Link pair should be fine.

MissChief · 21 May 2012 at 14:05

Have you tried inssider on a laptop first? Sky Routers, like most, have a preference for channel 1, 6 or 11. it's possible another channel might give a better signal to his room.

You could also go down the 'cancel Sky' route to try and get an N Router out of them?

MarcLister · 21 May 2012 at 19:58

MissChief said:
Have you tried inssider on a laptop first? Sky Routers, like most, have a preference for channel 1, 6 or 11. it's possible another channel might give a better signal to his room.

You could also go down the 'cancel Sky' route to try and get an N Router out of them?

I'll suggest both of those to my colleague.