Dippy Question on Wireless Router and Extender

[ianhopwood]

Hi everyone

iv got Virgin cable with wireless being distributed through a cheap edimax 6324nl. I have used a couple of belkin powerlines for a few years and they have been brilliant for laptops upstairs, but recently we purchased a couple of tablets and have found the wireless capabilities of the edimax very limiting. signal strength in the room above the router is great but going through walls is a bit of a problem.

My question is can you recommend some good wireless routers that are easy to set up (plus i dont mind purchasing wireless extenders for upstairs).

I notice there is a substantial price differential between wireless routers on oc website - is it worth spending say £100-£150 on a router and extender or do diminishing returns set in?

Cheers

Ian

The other option would be to purchase one of the powerline kits which also extend the wireless signal.

 

[Tealc]

An access point sits on the end of the ethernet cable and creates a new wifi network, which can have the same SSID and encryption as your main network.

A wireless extender does a similar job but doesn't need to be connected with the ethernet cable and will be the same SSID and encryption. It has been said that using a wireless extender halves your wireless network bandwidth. I've no idea if this is correct.

A router is not necessarily needed for extending a wireless network as some of the functions would not be used.

Paying more will tend to give you more functions such as dual band and the promises of better throughput but I suspect the throughoput wouldn't be 5 times better than the cheaper options.

 

[ianhopwood]

Thanks for the reply. Have been doing a bit of looking around the net, and it seems a good way to go could be placing an access point at the end of the powerline adapters, therefore not losing some of this claimed loss which you get from the range extenders - good point about throughput not being 5 times higher.

I think im going to purchase an edimax access point tomorrow for £30ish and see how i get on with that.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Tealc]

I'm pretty sure you can buy homeplugs with a wireless access point included. Might save a quid or two on buying spearates.

Can't find any on OcUK though so maybe they are older relics.

I often see people shifting old routers on freecycle and that could be £30 cheaper for you.