Increasing the range of a home WLAN

Could someone advise me how to increase the range of my Fritzbox 7050 so that I can get intenet in the basement (Keller) where my PC is located. Is there a repeater or something that is recommended?

Most if not all modern WLAN access points can also be put into repeater mode... Go buy another Access point and configure it up to repeat the signal downstairs.

Thanks Darknight, but could you elaborate please? What do you mean by 'another access point'. Do you mean a repeater, or another Fritzbox 7050, or what. I want to do this as cheaply as possible and the 7050 was not cheap.

Are you sure you can't pick up the signal in the basement? I can pick up signals from halfway down the road.

Another WLAN Access Point. It doesn't have to be a Fritzbox.. Almost all Normal Access Points can be configured in their firmware
to act as a repeater and Access point. Get whichever make/model device you like, but I wouldn't pay more than 30 Eur.

The problem with WLAN is that the frequency range it uses doesn't pentrate walls and flooers very well. This means that you might be able to pick it up easier in the garden 30m away (through just one wall) then you can just 10m away inside the house (through 2 or 3 or 4 walls). The same problem exists with the 3G phone network, as the frequency is similar.


As well as the suggestions here, you could also try moving the current WLAN router to another location so that it does not have to penetrate so many walls and floors. I done this, and by moving the box just 1m I increased my signal strength in the room upstairs from half to full.

You could also try using a power line based ethernet connection. Plug an ethernet cable into your router into this powerline connection, and have the other end in the basement. Ok so then you use a fixed connection in the basement, but at least you do have a connection.

Thanks for your help everyone. I've decided to buy a Siemens Gigaset WLAN repeater model 108. Hopefully this will solve my problem

There's another thread somewhere else with a similar content, but that thread was about stealing from your neighbour's WLAN... You can switch down to 802.11B which has better propagation characteristics than G and if all you're doing is web browsing it will probably make noooo difference whatsoever.

this is interesting but I've no idea what you mean

Reducing the speed from 54 mbps to 11 mbps.

Indeed, 802.11B is the 'old fashioned' 11Mbit wireless standard, and just happens to be what I use here. The printer and Mrs. Angel's PC are on it, she spends most of her time browsing the web and occasional small files from our local server and this slower B version works fine. The 802.11G standard is faster but only works over a shorter range. Somewhere there should be an option to switch, or just buy a B device and the whole lot will (or should) switch automatically.

Every "G" Access Point can be configured to support G Only, B+G, and B Only.. If running in mixed mode the fastest speed will be that of the slowest device..
Example: Your surfing on a G connection and 54MB.. Mrs. Angel turns on her B connected lappy, your connection will drop to a B connection.

The access point (Fritzbox 7050) is configured for b+g operation. I tried it on b only and configured my Fritz stick (on the basement computer) for b only (previously also b+g). This unfortunately has made no difference. The PC dosen't even detect the access point after a search

That's a shame, it should work in theory... Maybe you're just too far away and as DK said a repeater is the way to go.

If you are too far away there are still other options:

- powerline networking (lookup using your favorite search engine)
- plug an 802.11n wi-fi access point into the back of your current wi-fi/DSL box and disable the wi-fi portion of your current access point

I had a similar problem to yours. The walls in my house were blocking the signal to my office, but points more than double the distance were fine if there were no walls in-between. Getting a 802.11n access point solved my problems. It has superior range and penetration to 802.11g.

-geoff

You can try a different wifi card in the PC in the cellar (if you have one available). The quality of the card is important as well.

Powerline should be your last option.