Wireless range advice.

[Westwood]

Hi guys. A friend of mine has his ADSL modem and wireless router in his office at home plugged into his main pc via Ethernet. He has a laptop that he uses round the house wirelessly but the signal gets a bit weak when in the kitchen. He wants to be able to use it reliably in there so asked me for advice on how to extend the signal. I never have much luck with my wireless so I thought I would ask you guys! The wireless router is a buffalo. They any good for range or could just replacing the router with a more powerful/better one do the trick? What is the best wireless router for range on the market (doesn’t have to be cheap)? I also thought about using home plug kits to have a wired network to the kitchen and then another wireless access point in there. Although, that would mean there would be effectively 2 wireless access points for the laptop to choose between and would that be a problem or does roaming work OK like this? Does anyone have any pearls of wisdom they could let me have? Any advice appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[tolien]

Please make better use of the key below backspace. It would make your post a hell of a lot more readable.

Are the modem and router one and the same, is it an ethernet ADSL modem and "cable/DSL" router, or some other abomination?

does roaming work OK like this?

If by "roaming" you mean "manually connecting to the AP that gives a better signal", yes. If you mean some automatic process, no.
If both router and additional wireless device support WDS, that would be much better, since it should be automatic.

If it's separate router and ethernet ADSL modem, Linksys WRT54GL will let you attach better antennae, support WDS (IIRC with WPA), and can be endowed with third party firmware (which will quite often include an option to boost the transmit power).

Alternatively, try better antennae.

 

[errata]

Home plug would work as well and is less problematic than Wi Fi.

2 homeplugs and cables would do the job or
you can get an AP built into a homeplug plug allowing the laptop use its wirelss.

AP would also be portable to any room in the house on the mains!!

 

[wnb]

I succesfully extended the range two floors down from my netgear wireless modem and router. The singal I was getting downstairs was about 2-10 and with complete blackspots. I bought a hawkin [HWUR54G] Hi-Gain Wireless-G Range Extender which was very easy to use.

 

[tolien]

you can get an AP built into a homeplug plug allowing the laptop use its wirelss.

As the OP already suggested, with the problem that you can't roam between the two wireless APs...