WiFi and my very loooooong apartment - SOLVED

Hola friends and happy holidays.

My Brooklyn apartment is very loooong. Time Warners all in one router/modem/wifi reaches the front 40% of the apartment (TV room and my computer area + roku for the TV room) but we have a Roku in the back playroom (far back of the apartment) and Santa is bringing a PS3. Plus I like to be able to check email from my bedroom which is way back there as well.

Right now I have a Netgear Range Extender (which is adequate, but not amazing).

I did the measurements and it's going to be about 150 feet of CAT-6 to reach the back room from the main TWC router box. Right now the Netgear is okay, but if I was willing to run 150 ft of cable, could I set up a 2nd router of some kind back there to blast the whole area, really thoroughly?

Questions:

1) What's the best way to extend the range to cover the back half of the apartment with good wifi, reliably?
2) What product do you guys recommend for this task?
3) Where should I buy the cable?

Thanks!
AC

I'd actually like to do something similar at my house. My wifi BARELY reaches my shop out back and I drop it all the time. I'd like to put a repeater or something out there but I'm not sure what exactly I need.

I know I can run a cable out there and put another wireless router on it, but I'd rather not be running 2 separate wifi networks if I can avoid it. I'd prefer to just repeat the one I have in the house. any product like that?

I'm not being particularly helpful, but I know this kind of product exists. My institute has the same wireless network across the whole campus (larger than a Brooklyn apartment), and I know there are several broadcast points. Unfortunately, that's all I know.

Hey AC you should be able to get that length of cable for cheap on Amazon (I did it at my house). It will be MUCH cheaper than at HD or Lowes or a mom & pop. You can also get a coupler to mate two smaller cables together for less than a buck.

edit: $9.99 for CAT5e on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Cat5e-Networking- ... 5+150+feet

Maybe you can just run the cable and connect it to a hub for the Roku and playstation, bypassing wifi altogether?


I think the thing you and Ash are looking for to extend your Wifi range is called an wireless access point. They're like $40 or less on Amazon (I bought one once to setup on-demand for my DVR w/out going through DirecTV).

being I work for a local ISP this is what I usually suggest when a repeat is nit enough and there are a few option

1: centrally locate the gateway(modem/router unit) in the home to better coverage, this is ideal if everything is wireless.

2: get a decent 2 router that can act as a repeater which will be a little more powerful and give you the ports to hard wire

3:this is what I highly recommend as this is what I deal with all day, if money is not much of a concern ditch the gateway specially if you are renting it from TimeWarner, gateways suck as they are limited on settings and their wifi performance is horrible and on avg will get you about 50ft and instead get yourself a DOCSIS 3 modem like the Motorola SB6141 and pair it up with a decent router that is dual band and I highly recommend the ASUS router some of their mid level router and higher end one have excellent range and you can even change the power levels on the antenna. I know with my ASUS router I have at the far end of my apartment and its about a 100ft to the other end and have block and metal stud construction I get full bars and I know I can go out side by some distance and only have my antenna power at about 50%


if you decide to go with a access point or a stand alone modem and router most decent routers start in the price range of $70-$100 and most mid/high router are in the $100-$150

Last edited by MATRIX on Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I just looked at the repeater you have it appears not to be a very good one, so if you just want to try another repeater try something like this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833281004

so if you just want to try another repeater try something like this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833281004

I was just looking at adding a wireless repeater to give me better signal reach, and funnily enough, I was looking at exactly that repeater. Now I feel better about my choice and will just order the bloody thing... lolz

BTW - it's $5 less on Amazon, and if you have Prime, free shipping.
http://www.amazon.com/Amped-Wireless-Wireless-N-Repeater-SR300/dp/B004NBL9WK/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1388130976&sr=1-4

Same problem here, ordering the same product, thanks for the advice!

The solution, in my case, has been a hard wired access point. I ran CAT-6 from my main router (along the crown moulding) to - more or less - the middle of the apartment. I attached a TP Link access point which takes ethernet in and then broadcasts wifi. The back half of the apartment now has flawless, good signal wifi as does the front. The only hassle is that I need to switch between networks when i take the iPad from one end of the house to the other.

Here is the wifi access point that I mentioned last month:
http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks ... uiti+unifi

I bought 2 of these, one for the house and one for my garage in the back yard. Since they are both access points on the same network my wifi devices switch seamlessly between whichever one has a stronger signal with no interruptions.

Well worth the money imo.

I recently got one of these... works great.

NETGEAR Trek N300 Range Extender and Travel Router