We have ATT Fiber with the BWG320 unit. I want to put an extender outside in a covered garage to obviously get better coverage that direction. ATT has some kind of mesh unit they will rent me for $10/mth that’s about the same size as the base unit.
I’m looking for something smaller, maybe one of those that just plugs into a power outlet after it’s been configured via Ethernet?
I’ve seen “reviews” on pcmag, cnet, etc which are more paid advertising than reviews these days.
Does anyone have a say sub-$100 price point unit they would recommend?
Serve The Home recently did a little mini review of power line network extenders (they send signals over the electrical wires in your home, and you need a little converter box on each end) and they’re just as unpleasant as they’ve always been. I’ll edit and put in a link once I’m at the desktop.
Realistically any wifi “extender” where it repeats a wireless signal will suck. I had one I was given by someone else who didn’t like it and I ended up unplugging it because it was more trouble than it was worth.
There’s 3 good solutions available to get the wireless network to your garage:
Run an Ethernet back haul to the garage and install another wireless network there with an access point of some kind
Go with a mesh solution of some kind (ideally with a wired backhaul to the garage, but a mesh system shouldn’t muck up your coverage in the main part of the house like a WiFi repeater would) and ATT’s solution is probably just a rebranded plume which I’ve heard are actually not bad at all
Get any access point and place it at a more central location with a wired backhaul to the router so that the bubble of coverage better hits the devices you need covered
I also have the BWG320 modem. I’ve got 3 of these spread around my 2400 sq ft house. Work great! Getting about 300Mbps speedtest. Can’t beat the price.
Wireless “range extenders” all suck. Convenient to use, but network performance will take a nosedive. You can mitigate the losses a bit by using dual/tri/quad band repeaters/extenders. I have such a setup in part of my house and it works decently. TP-Link extenders are decent.
Best to buy TWO APs… Configure one as a wireless client-only, the other as a wireless AP / bridge (on a different channel), and connect them together via an ethernet cable.
They really only exist so you can wirelessly link smart IoT devices in your garage, printers, or what ever you don’t really care about to the wifi in a ‘good enough’ way.
I kinda figured I was gonna get the “they all suck” responses.
As far as degraded network performance, the only person really caring about coverage is my dad when he’s tinkering out there and all he does is play some card games and message friends all day, so 300Mbs on an sucky extender is perfectly fine for his nonsense.
@vicbyrd thanks, i’ll look into those units, my only problem with them is I assume they are intended to be plugged in so that the antenna are pointing upwards of sorts. My grandfather, who built this house and everything on the property by hand, decided it was a brilliant idea to install every single power outlet on this property with the ground plug up. sigh Not sure how that would effect the signal.
If you can run a cable you should run a cable. Even if you have to do it via moca to get a wired connection to the far spot.
My grandfather, who built this house and everything on the property by hand, decided it was a brilliant idea to install every single power outlet on this property with the ground plug up. sigh Not sure how that would effect the signal.
That is actually the safer way to do it, and how it is required to be done in commercial locations in the US now.
The tricky bit if using wireless backhaul is that your extender needs to be placed somewhere that has a good signal from the base station and where the coverage radius of the extender hits the area you actually need WiFi in.
Depending on the distance between the house and the garage, it could be preferable to set up a point to point bridge with directional antennas and then place an AP in the garage. Ubiquiti and Mikrotik make some devices suitable for exterior mounting for this usage.
A wireless bridge would be the best option. I have been using such a setup for the main house for years now with no problems, but then my networking needs are not too demanding (games, HD movies, web browsing, etc). An outdoor wireless AP at the edge of the house (the AP is wired to the main router inside the house) and then a wireless router in bridge mode inside a detached room some 20 meters away.
Those are two things that aren’t compatible. The problem with that setup is that it is always going to suck. First off your speeds are going to be bad as the extender is just a client. Second off roaming it going to be a pain and will be a mostly manual experience.
What you need is access points with 802.11r. 802.11r is for wireless roaming and it allows device handoffs when the signal strength is to low. It should be completely seemless and you can walk around with a video playing with no interruption.
To do 802.11r you need a backplane. Ideally you should run physical cables but if that isn’t viable you can use 802.11s which is WiFi mesh. Wifi mesh basiclly is a giant hub for traffic. Multi hop routing is handled automatically and the is no central controller. The mesh just needs at least 2 devices to form.
TP-link Deco M5’s are ok, you get three in a pack and you connect one to your router then they all work together in a mesh setup. For the money they’re ok.