So, for example, if you’re standing right next to your WiFi router (where the signal is strongest) and get 50 megabits per second (fast enough to stream two 4K Netflix videos at once), the speed in your extended network will be about 25 megabits per second. That extra step can reduce the speed of your WiFi signal by about half.
“So now the data that originally would have come directly from the access point to your connected device is going through an intermediate step,” Athreya says. That’s in part because an extender relies on the same frequency band as the router itself.
The extender can then pick up the WiFi signal from your router and push it deeper into your home.īut you’re likely to notice a significant drop in throughput speeds in the “extended” network, says Kannan Athreya, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at Ohio State University. To get the best results, you have to plug the extender into a power outlet midway between your router and the dead-zone area. This article is a good place to start: Stop Clearing Away Your Wi-Fi Signals.Īrticle by Geir Arne Rimala and Jorunn D.While it’s tempting to think of a WiFi range extender as a device that can beam fast, reliable WiFi throughout your home, it’s more like a spot fix for the dead zone in your bedroom or attic-turned-home office. Here at Wi-Fi Central you will find plenty of advice on mapping and improving your coverage in ways that are both fully legal and completely free. So what can you do instead, when the signals are looking too weak? What To Do Instead of Wi-Fi Signal Boosting In this case, all you have achieved through signal boosting is sabotaging yourself by making your coverage less predictable than it was in the first place. Even though you may succeed in making your router transmit a stronger signal that reaches further, there is no guarantee that the signals returned by your wireless clients-computers, smartphones, and so on-will be able to reach the router. You May Sabotage Yourselfįor a wireless connection to work well, both sides of the connection need to be able to reach each other. Extending your signal further will therefore contribute to even more interference for your neighbors. However, the frequency band with the longest reaching signals (2.4 GHz) is also the band with the most interference / wireless "noise". You Will Sabotage Your Neighborsīy boosting the Wi-Fi signal, you can extend its reach, which sounds like a good thing.
The repeater/extender simply repeats the signal from the router to create a new network that extends wireless coverage. Note that while Wi-Fi extenders or repeaters are sometimes referred to as Wi-Fi "amplifiers", there is no actual amplification of signal strength involved.