Telus now offering WiFi Extender -- should I visit MemEx instead?

[Tom]

What he said.

[Melbosa]

What they said...

[Lazybones]

I should also say that I DO use a WiFi extender, but I also have 3 floors to cover... WiFi extenders also half the bandwidth for the device using the extender so they are good to get coverage for you iPad across the house to surf but BAD if you want to extend gaming or high quality streaming. SmallNetbuilder has reviews for them as well, but for the money you are STILL better getting a more powerful router/AP if you are in an apartment.

[Tom]

May also be an option to get a separate router and connect it with ethernet, or those powerline networking dongles. Some are pretty decent, a few hundred mbps.

If your routers have dual radios, you can use one of them to dedicate to a "backbone".

[Lazybones]

Stay away from powerline Ethernet, especially in an apartment / townhouse. Tried it myself even after others suggested they where bad. It was worse.

[Tom]

Hm, I suppose there can be issues with shared lines. I know a guy who set one up in his basement suite, and he says it works ok. But ymmv. It has improved in recent years, but meh.

There is also ethernet over coax.. also may have a shared line issue?

[Lazybones]

I tried a well rated 500mbit unit two outlets apart. Connection was listed as 180mbit and latency was double digit.

Moved the second  unit upstairs and got the same reported speed but latancy went double to triple digit and started having packet loss.

[Tom]

Youch. That's pretty bad. Those outlets may not have been on the same circuit, maybe. But yeah, probably not a good idea to use them in an apartment.

[Lazybones]

Also if you don't follow the directions to randomize the network encryption you auto bridge to your network to anyone adjacent house that didn't read the directions.

[Mr. Analog]

Darren, did you ever get this sorted out?

[Darren Dirt]

I never went "Full Tom" with this issue, instead I got extra telephone cord and moved my router to the living room wall closest to the rest of the apartment, and most of the time even the farthest room is getting 40%-65% signal strength. And that's with 1 or 2 Netflix or streaming sites going at the same time.


In the future might move into a townhouse and that would reduce the length the wifi signal has to go (even if adding vertical, potentially).

Plus in my *current* apartment building there's still like 15 other wifi routers broadcasting -- that certainly can't help, even if I make sure to regularly check that I am using a channel as far away from everyone else as possible (this month I'm using Channel 9, there's like seven of them all using Channel 1 lol ... but as quoted below I gotta keep an eye on "current trends"!)

Have you tried selecting different channels on your existing wireless to see if there's a channel that works better than the others?

On my Galaxy S 3 there is a "radar mode" that visibly shows the various WiFi competing for my local space around my apartment,  checked that yesterday and HOLY CRAP there's a ton!

Most seem to be on Channel 11 (lol @ lazy people!) and a few weeks ago I had switched to Channel 2 and am presently the only one using that (a few are on Channel 1 or 3).

[Mr. Analog]

I have a spare extender if you want it. Bought one for my mom on the weekend and she couldn't figure it out and just had Telus come over and install one

[Tom]

Haha. "Full Tom". indeed. The extension cable was a decent enough solution. But if you want better reception (any drops or random slowdowns?) Putting the main router on one end, and an extender half way or on the other end would probably help.

[Mr. Analog]

DARREN do you need a Wi-Fi extender? I have an extra D-Link, it plugs into a wall socket, works good

[Darren Dirt]

Can't hurt to try it. Let's get together this week maybe (not today though).