Hi,

BT infinity great wired and fine within wifi range of the BT Homehub.

I need to extend to an upper floor area with no signal currently. I want to do this in whichever is the ‘best’ way to maintain the speed I’m getting with BT infinity.

I think I have a few options.

1. Repeater
2. Wireless bridge – i.e. another router (without a wired connection) in some mid point in bridge mode
3. Powerline and some kind of bridge or access point

Any suggestions on which may be best to pursue? Also interested if 2. above will work – ie unwired bridge? Wondering about bandwidth on that.

Anyway not my specialist subject so appreciate any help!

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/netgear-powerline-500mbps-homeplug-1xrj45-and-11n-wifi-access-point-extender-ideal-for-tablets-mobil

I have a cheaper version of this (200Mbps, crappier brand, but only £50 for the set) and it works pretty well. If you spend a bit more you get a better kind of firmware, although Im not sure the hardware is much different as I gather most of the internal gubbins is made in the same place.

Excuse “no technical” reply – I use the network extenders that work through the house mains wiring, one plugged into to router and another upstairs. These cost £25 for the pair. This is either used with desktop connected via Ethernet cable or now to an Apple Airport which I had already and which I have setup with a different wireless network name (as that was easiest). The airport was about £80 bought previously for use with Sterio.

Wireless repeaters have the own set of problems. Expect to have fun when trying to debug connection issues. Also, networked printers will sometimes show up on one part of the network and not another.

It works, but isn’t a great solution.

Have you considered a better router?

A quick +1 for @elton, IME the BT router is pretty poor, there are many better ones

I want to do this too but I am not very technical with these sorts of things. Can anyone link me to a product I can buy that will do the job? I don’t really know what I’m looking for.

I have a virgin superhub which is great but won’t reach to my bedroom as its in the lounge and my bedroom is in the far corner of the house. For various reasons I can’t move the router. I could run a Cat5 cable from the superhub upstairs though. Would that help?

If you can easily run Cat5 then just do it. Otherwise, Powerline.

Option 3, use powerline networking to place another access point in the dead zone.

Assuming you’re using 2.4GHz, remember to put each of your access points on non-overlapping channels such as 1, 6 and 11.

You can keep the same SSID which keeps things neater, although you won’t get seamless roaming. The downside of this method is one of your devices might get ‘stuck’ on the access point with the poorer signal. You can tweak the roaming aggressiveness of your WLAN adapter but this doesn’t always work. Alternatively use two different SSIDs, still on non-overlapping channels, such as ‘MYHOUSE-DOWNSTAIRS’ and ‘MYHOUSE-UPSTAIRS’. This way you can manually connect to the access point with the best signal rather than relying on windows or your WLAN driver to do it for you.

Also, check you are not trying to compete with any signals from your neigbours, download inssider and avoid any channels with strong signals nearby.

Hope this helps

+1 powerlines

@robdob – I looked up the product I have it’s a TP-Link powerline – as above originally used with desktop and ethernet cable link here – I bought from pc world

They do a wireless extender, basically you put this “in the middle” between current router and part of house with no wifi link

You can also do a combination – so use house wiring to get het work to distant part of house then have a wifi unit there (thisis now what I hav via TP-link and apple airport – here is the tp link version Link as @yorkshire says I have a downstairs and an upstairs wifi network

+1 Cat5

This thing has been fine for me for the last 8 months
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Duronic-IR815-Wireless-N-Repeater-Amplifier/dp/B009M6CE2A/
Pretty easy to setup and reliable so far.

I use option 2 – a wireless repeater.

to be boring, I’ve got nothing to really say other than it works.

Mine’s a Buffalo G300N like this.

http://www.extak.com/catalog/19094/Buffalo-Nfiniti-WHR-G300N-Wireless-Route?ppc=google_shopping

I have installed DD-WRT firmware on it but only really because it’s what I’ve used before and it works well.

I used a powerline wifi adapter to extend the network in our house and although it worked you will not get seamless roaming (as already said) so when you move from part of the house to another your [insert device] will very likely drop the connection and you ‘ll have to connect again.
After about 6 months of this it became a FPITA.

I then bought a v4 Apple Airport Extreme and used this as the wifi base station (switched off the wifi on my router) and then extended the network with the Airport Express I already had – this took a single click of the mouse.

This setup has now given me dual band wifi with absolutely seamless roaming and a network printer and NAS (just plug any USB printer and HD into the back of the Airport Extreme. Plus I could add further Airport Extremes or Expresses to extend the network even further if I wanted to.

I want to do this in whichever is the ‘best’ way to maintain the speed I’m getting with BT infinity.

You can ditch the BT wifi on your router and plug any wifi base station into the router using cat5 and it will make no difference to your infinity speed.

I need the extension to my bedroom so I can connect my iPhone or other devices like that to the wireless network. Devices I can’t connect a Cat5 cable to.

Anybody come across a wifi repeater that works off batteries? Or USB power?

Would be really handy…

Rachel

Anybody come across a wifi repeater that works off batteries? Or USB power?

Would be really handy…

Look at this

http://uk.tp-link.com/products/details/?categoryid=&model=TL-WR702N

powered via USB and can act as AP (default), Client, Router, Repeater and Bridge modes

I only use mine as an AP to allow me to connect my tablet to wired networks.

I use the powerline adapters with BT infinity and have little or no drop in speed. Contact BT and they will send you some out for free, complain that your speed has dropped and say you cannot plug your PC in to router directly as it is upstairs and they will send you some out.

+1 for cat 5, especially if you plan to be moving a lot over it. Cheap too

+1 for cat 5, especially if you plan to be moving a lot over it. Cheap too

If you’re actually going to chase cables you’d be a mug to use anything less than 5e.

You all keep saying use Cat5 cable, but I can’t find a Cat5 port on my iPhone. 😆 🙄

Robdob, you need an adaptor.