WIFI AP extender

SINCLR · January 21, 2019

Hi people,

I've recently moved house and we now have a dead zone at the end of the house (poor daughter gets no wifi in her room)

We are on Fibre1000 with the std "ultrahub" router/modem from the isp. from this i run a network cable down to my office in the dead zone where i have a tp link switch set up for my pc etc..

I've been looking at these plug in "range extenders" that repeat OR Ap mode....

What i want is to NOT have to select different networks from our devices depending on what end of the house we are at...

Am i better off with one of these plug in jobs...which in my mind i would have connected to the switch 24/7 OR getting a cheap router like the AC6 and do the disable DCHP thing turning it into an extension of the network?....

I'm leaning towards the AC6 solution but NEED some input from people who KNOW what they are talking about

Alex Atkin UK · January 22, 2019

Router in AP mode (or with DHCP turned off if it doesn't have it) or a dedicated Access Point.

Router is especially useful when you only need a few wired clients due to it being able to completely replace the switch, saving a socket and electricity.

Access Point is useful as you can go for a small-business grade unit that can be ceiling mounted for optimal range.

I don't like the plug-in variety as you can't reposition them for optimal reception, plus the antennas are often lesser gain. I'd also wager having the PSU that close causes interference.

As for not putting in different names, you simply set the SSID to be the same on both Access Points and once you lose reception from one it will connect to the other. This can still result in your device hanging on to the weaker device as you move out of range, but there isn't much you can do about that without getting a mesh network that specifically monitors for this case.

It is however generally a good idea to to use different names for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz for the same reason. Devices will tend to prefer 2.4Ghz due to being a stronger signal, even when 5Ghz with a weaker signal (its almost always weaker due to its shorter range) could be many times faster and more reliable.