Wireless Repeaters are Good!
Wireless Repeaters are Good! And its applicability is much more realistic in today's world. We all know what WiFi is. I don't mean the nerdy stuff behind it. But just WiFi...we know what it is. And we know it's important and that it's part of life. Can you imagine life today without WiFi? A year or two ago maybe people were just concern of getting a good internet connection. But today, you need more than that! With all the wireless devices around, Smartphones, Tablets, iPads and now SmartTV, we all desperately want a good WiFi connection.
If you have a good internet plan, let's say your paying for something like a 2 Mbps plan, that's actually a good connection for home use by "Philippine standards" (knowing that we run a slow connection in the county). Your connection is probably in a stable line like a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) from PLDT, BayanTel or Globe. I say stable because anything that's wired is better than wireless (Crazy right? Wired better than Wireless and we're here talking about Wireless connection). So going back... Your internet connection might be running okay, BUT you seem to be having problems going to your favorite websites or doing an internet search. Well, if you're doing this on a Wireless device such as your laptop or iPad, you have to take notice of the Wireless Signal strength. If the Wireless Signal is WEAK, then that in itself is a problem and can cause your slow connection. But if the signal is strong, then this article might not apply to you yet. You might need to check your internet connection or the number of users using your WiFi and the applications or websites they are using.
If the Wireless Signal is weak, that in itself is a problem and can cause your slow connection. Why? Think of it as something like this. You're standing on the side of the road and across the street is your friend. You call to your friend with a normal tone of voice and he barely hears you or doesn't hear you at all. Why? Because of your distance and your normal tone of voice is not enough to reach the receiver (your friend). In a WiFi perspective, that would mean the communication between your laptop and the router is not amplified enough that the router and the laptop barely hears each other. This causes the slow connection. And in worst cases, since you are too far from each other that there is no communication at all, you and your friend can't hear each other and similarly your router and laptop are having the same experience. So since no communication is present then you'll have a bad WiFi signal or no signal at all (even if the internet supply from your modem/router is actually working fine..in this case, it's not the fault of your internet provider...internet in not actually slow!).
So it's about the distance between the router and wireless laptop or iPad? Yes! Exactly. But what if they are close to each other and I still get a bad signal? Let's say the router is just outside your door or just down the hall or at your brother's in the room next to yours. Why do I still get a bad signal? That couldn't be too far away... If you're thinking that, that's also correct. But here's the possible cause of your predicament... Wireless Routers vary in the amount of power it gives to boost the signal and the size (or range) of the antenna. We will not go deep and talk about how to manage router power or the types of antenna to use. But basically, these two (2) factors affects how far the WiFi signal goes. So a lower transmission power or small antenna or both, can cause your router to send the WiFi signal to only a limited area thus you don't get a good signal even if you think you're just near the router. Secondly, there's the issue of walls and other obstructions that blocks the WiFi signal. Have you tried to check the difference of your WiFi when the door was open and when it was closed? Right... the signal was better when the door was open. Why? Because you took away the obstacle. WiFi signals are SIGNALS and by nature they need to get through your thick walls. So if you have a lovely house, you might also have thick concrete walls all around and that's going to cause your WiFi signal to sweat!
The solution to all our WiFi signal problems? Yes... the main topic of this article... you need a WIRELESS REPEATER to get a good WiFi signal in a wide area or somewhere with a lot of concrete walls and other obstructions. As the name suggest, a Wireless Repeater simply REPEATS the signal and does not create its own signal/new network like your router.
Going deeper into the concept of repeaters.
Wireless Repeaters will need to connect to your existing router (so you will have 2 devices, the router and the repeater). The connection will also be wireless. I'm talking here of your usual commercial repeater product available at any tech shop in your favorite mall. I prefer to use TP-Link devices but there are also Cisco-Linksys repeaters that I would recommend and there's a repeater from Asus and Netgear but I don't have a real hands-on review for the Netgear and just a bit for Asus.
Setting up the repeater will vary according to the device you have. But here's the general structure. Again, you connect them via wireless (so that's good, no more wires!). Once you get the repeater connected to the router, your Service Set Identifier (SSID) or "WiFi Name" will be one and the same as that of your router. The design here is not to setup two (2) routers and have two (2) WiFi Names, with Wireless Repeaters, you will get the convenience of having one (1) WiFi Name and the extended range!
So how does it extend the range? Let's say your router is in your living room and that it has a good signal around a 5-meter radius. That's the limit for that router. Now, you have a Wireless Repeater in your room where the signal was weak. The repeater will get the signal from the router and REPEAT/EXTEND/BOOST it your room giving you a superior WiFi signal strength (or how we understand it, "faster internet connection").
As simple as that...problem on Wireless signal solved!
But there is a dark side to Wireless Repeaters... But you don't need to worry about this unless you're into very deep performance configurations.
The nature of the repeater's architecture is that it acts as a middleman between the router and your laptop and it does not provide a clear highway between the two (2) devices [your laptop and the router]. What it actually does is that it "echoes" your communication/data--you get your signal from the repeater then the repeater sends the signal to the router...when the router replies, the message is first sent to the repeater and the repeater sends it to you. This echoing of communication causes a huge 50% cut in network performance (not a cut in your "internet speed"). This should not bother the average user.
In our house I have the main router in the house-office which is a separate closed room in the second floor. You see thick concrete walls everywhere and getting WiFi signal to all the rooms is impossible without a Wireless Repeater. My main router, a Cisco E3000 (with dd-wrt) reaches only the common areas in the first and second floors. So I have one (1) TP-Link TL-WA830RE Wireless Repeater in the second floor and one (1) TP-Link TL-WA730RE Wireless Repeater for the first floor. This setup enabled me to boost the wireless signal and get the WiFi signal to reach all the rooms.
There are other ways to boost your WiFi signal. Such as proper placement of routers, changing to antennas that provides better coverage, among others. But for wide areas or areas with a lot of obstruction, I suggest you go for a Wireless Repeater.
Tip: When you setup your Wireless Repeater, Connect it to the router not to the other repeater if you have more than one (1) Wireless Repeater running.
Tip #2: Wireless Routers (and also Wireless Repeaters) run on signals or radio waves. These waves have specific frequencies. If you set it close to other radio transmitting devices (such as your microwave oven and wireless telephone), your signal will need to work harder to broadcast itself.
Hope this helps someone.
