Extending my wifi signal range

[sm2154]

Hello all, 

I've fairly recently joined Vodafone, and I've noticed that compared with my previous ISP the signal strength in some of the rooms of my house are poor. In general though the speeds are generally adequate. 

To alleviate this, as far as I understand it there seems to be a few different options:-

1) Get a new router which should (hopefully) provide a stronger signal akin to my previous ISP.

2) Purchase Wifi repeater/booster(s) which should easily provide signal to the areas of the house that are currently lacking signal.

3) Integrate a second router onto the network to improve signal coverage in general. 

My preferred option would probably be the use of a wifi repeater/booster as it seems the most simple method, but I'm conscious that as the internet speed from my router is just about adequate connecting directly, presumably the use of a repeater/booster will slow speeds to a level where it may be impractical. 

The problem with the use of a second router/access point is that from my basic research it seems it would have to be connected to the main router via an ethernet cable which wouldn't be practical for me. 

I was therefore wondering if someone could kindly provide me with some advice on how you'd suggest I proceed, I'm quite happy to spend a fair amount on a wifi repeater/booster if the speeds aren't generally markedly slower but I'm not particularly knowledgeable about what solution would be best. Thanks in advance. 

[Dougster]

I feel your pain.

When I moved my broadband contract from Sky to Vodafone last week (due to tempting discount for mobile users), I was rather shocked to see that my new Vodafone router (THG3000) was not working properly with my TP-Link powerline adaptors. And while the Sky router (SR102) had been working pretty well, the range of the Vodafone router itself was extremely disappointing as you say, and as noted in many places on this forum. The powerline adaptors were working intermittently if at all.

After checking some internet posts including on this forum, I decided to try to connect my old Sky router to the Vodafone one and link the sky router with the TP-Link connectors. It has worked really well and was much simpler than I had feared.

However, I’m not sure I have used all the right settings. Here’s what I did (might not be exactly in sequence!) for anyone to comment or improve on, or if it’s any help:

• Disabled wi-fi on new Voda router

On old Sky Router:

• Named an SSID and set up a password; on Advanced/LAN IP Setup page - inserted IP address of 192.168 1.2 (Voda router is 192.168.1.1) and unticked “use router as DCHP server”; unchecked “Enable IPv6 on LAN side”.

Using the LAN sockets, linked the two routers by a short cable, linked the Sky router with the base TP-Link powerline plug, and linked the PC to the Sky router – although that last link seemed to work fine on the Voda one too.

Finally, used the TP utility to link each of my powerline wi-fi adaptors to the Sky SSID.

The only thing that puzzles me is that the PC ethernet connection has the name of the Sky SSID, regardless of which router it’s connected to.

Hope this is helpful. Do I now have the best of both worlds? Or might this setup be insecure or unstable over time?

[sm2154]

That’s really handy, thanks very much. I’ll give that a try in the first instance although I’m not the best on technical particulars, hopefully they’ll be a guide online somewhere or perhaps on this forum if I do a bit of digging.