N Wireless Repeater

[dmoskaluk]

I have always had issues with weakness in getting the wifi reliably & consistently to the far corner of a room in which I spend time, ie my side of the bed... Given that the phone company supplied modem/ router available here is known for less than stellar range, I've had to use work-arounds ie I already have 2 range extenders to provide a bit of outdoor coverage to two sides of the yard & patio area. They work very well ( dedicated SSIDs & passwords) but were a bear to configure as I'm far from a techhie. Forget all which they say about 'configure in minutes', I had a friend who was an IT Manager for 20ish years in a very large corporate entity here to visit - she is stubborn & tenacious but took most of an entire night to get them working properly. I dread the day we have to replace the modem/ router due to phone company upgrades or a failure because I'll have to hire an expert at that point to set up the extenders again
I 've seen many pop up type ads from different outfits touting a ' wifi repeater' which can (in theory) be configured in simplist form as exactly that, OR, set up an an access point, either Ethernet or Wifi. I chose 'simple' and followed directions for the 'repeater only' function. In many reviews of this and similar products (on Amazon) I've seen comments about good results with range but very much reduced speed indications (50% +/-) for upload / download BUT no notacible degrade of internet performance in the area it repeats to. I've found that to be absolutely true ie my norms from the router are about 40 mbps download, 20 upload. In the room covered by the repeater, I see ( Speedtest.net) 15 down & 5 up, which is what I had about 3 or 4 years ago from the ISP, but my performance is faster by far that what I had in the bedroom albeit showing the full router speed. When away from the bedroom I see & have normal speeds & performance. As I said, I'm far from a geek so can't really equate the lower test numbers with the improvements in performance, but I'll take what I can get . Comments please ( and thank you)

 

[imwjl]

I have always had issues with weakness in getting the wifi reliably & consistently to the far corner of a room in which I spend time, ie my side of the bed... Given that the phone company supplied modem/ router available here is known for less than stellar range, I've had to use work-arounds ie I already have 2 range extenders to provide a bit of outdoor coverage to two sides of the yard & patio area. They work very well ( dedicated SSIDs & passwords) but were a bear to configure as I'm far from a techhie. Forget all which they say about 'configure in minutes', I had a friend who was an IT Manager for 20ish years in a very large corporate entity here to visit - she is stubborn & tenacious but took most of an entire night to get them working properly. I dread the day we have to replace the modem/ router due to phone company upgrades or a failure because I'll have to hire an expert at that point to set up the extenders again
I 've seen many pop up type ads from different outfits touting a ' wifi repeater' which can (in theory) be configured in simplist form as exactly that, OR, set up an an access point, either Ethernet or Wifi. I chose 'simple' and followed directions for the 'repeater only' function. In many reviews of this and similar products (on Amazon) I've seen comments about good results with range but very much reduced speed indications (50% +/-) for upload / download BUT no notacible degrade of internet performance in the area it repeats to. I've found that to be absolutely true ie my norms from the router are about 40 mbps download, 20 upload. In the room covered by the repeater, I see ( Speedtest.net) 15 down & 5 up, which is what I had about 3 or 4 years ago from the ISP, but my performance is faster by far that what I had in the bedroom albeit showing the full router speed. When away from the bedroom I see & have normal speeds & performance. As I said, I'm far from a geek so can't really equate the lower test numbers with the improvements in performance, but I'll take what I can get . Comments please ( and thank you)

An IT manager doesn't necessarily mean a good network engineer or technician. In my case networking was the biggest element when I became an enterprise IT manager but that leaves me not the best programmer.

At this point in time do not work with bridges or repeaters unless they are a must and enterprise grade because there are great WiFi mesh products available for a home and small office. You won't waste all that time and have much better results. I get dragged into home networking problems some of the c suite staff have and can say for sure everyone's happiest by just going to a good modern product right away.

Feel free to read reviews but I'll waste no time pointing out that I'm fond of Cisco Meraki and Ubiquiti products and the Amplifi line Ubiquiti has for home users. I can't imagine anything topping Meraki SDWAN with an AP and AMP feature but that's expensive. The Amplifi line has very strong "meshpoints" that are a no brainier to configure and tune.

Google has an easy to use product but the reviews I recall did say the radio performance is not with the best. My circle of friends who do same or similar work have noticed Ubiquiti being an enterprise provider is quick to patch their products compared to some.

In general, you will not see that speed drop if you have a meshed system vs inexpensive consumer grade repeaters. You can pick up used Apple WiFi that still got a recent software update. That works well but the repeater schema will not be as good as a meshed system.

 

[dmoskaluk]

Thanks but realize I'm in the Caribbean, where the migration from copper ADSL to 'mostly fibre', is far from complete. A lot of newer age technology is simply not available, and if it is, support as such is shakey so we have to deal in the era that is probably fading out in the more developed places

 

[imwjl]

Thanks but realize I'm in the Caribbean, where the migration from copper ADSL to 'mostly fibre', is far from complete. A lot of newer age technology is simply not available, and if it is, support as such is shakey so we have to deal in the era that is probably fading out in the more developed places

We travel to the region often and rent villas. Some owners or management firms have the now crappy by comparison consumer grade repeaters and some buy newer mesh systems locally or from abroad depending on where. For some travel I've taken my own small AirPort unit and while there used it instead of the less robust unit the DSL provider had.

The carrier and your premises are different. You can have a superior meshed WiFi system even if new PSTN/TELCO/ISP build out isn't complete at your address. Sure there are infrastructure and retail differences between different places we've visited but most everyone seems to know how to get these sorts of items on the islands when a local distributor or retailer does not have them.

 

[dmoskaluk]

Trying to get even run of the mill appliances & support is like 'picking hens teeth' ( a West Indian term) Even if something would be 'off the shelf' in The US, UK, Canada or Western Europe, one can guarantee major issues with availability, price, support etc. Many simpler things than telecommunication equipment in a non-commercial environment suffer the same woes and even high priced enterprise grade equipment and support is sadly lacking.
I'm doing just fine so far with simplicity, both for reliability and performance, but thanks....