Would a wi-fi extender be useful here?

kah22

My friend is in the process of moving into sheltered housing. It’s apartment type accommodation housing 36 one or two bedroom apartments spread over a ground and upper floor. The literature says internet access but the warden seems to have told him that he’ll need to provide his own phone and internet

The phone line I appreciate.  While I haven’t seen the layout myself I’m told there is internet in the common room; perhaps she could piggy back onto it!

I understand that you can get a wi-fi extender and hopefully this would give my friend coverage, it is supplied in the common room, so presumably that’s where their router is.  

Presumably the signal will reach some orther rooms on its own, so I suppose that the first thing to do would be to see if there was a signal in his room

If an extender is needed, is it just plug it in and away you go and do you have to plug anything into the router itself?

At the moment I’m looking at two models the Netgear WN3000RP-200UKS @ £20 or the TP-Link RE450, a Which? Best Buy, coming in at £65

My friend operates an iPhone and an iPad Air. Any views or suggestions?

Greg Hook

Wireless extenders can sometimes be dreadful bits of kit.
I wouldn’t recommend that unless all she wants to do is browse the Internet. Anything like hd streaming or hd Youtube and it will struggle.

But the biggest issue may be in getting permission to access the router to extend the Wi-Fi.

For £20 if she is given permission to access the router you could try the netgear. It can always be returned if it is no good.

kah22

Thanks.  There shouldn’t be any bother in getting the password as access is available for residents in the common room.

cosmicma

first thing i would do is find out how far the wifi signal travels from the common room
you can do this with a simple app on your phone, the app i use on an android phone is WiFi analyzer  which gives quite a bit of info about the wifi signals in the immediate area and also a signal meter to give you an idea how good or bad the wifi signal is at a given point
if there is no signal where you want to plug the extender in ( usually a mains wall socket ) it's not going to boost a signal that is not present

if there is a signal then you should have no problem and the WiFi extender i use and find pretty stable is one of these

Buy BT 11AC Dual Band N1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender | Wi-Fi boosters | Argos

reasonably priced and in my experience quite reliable

noiseboy72

You may find you need to plug the extender in midway between the common room and your friend's room.

A better solution might be a 4G router and sim card. One of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0161ACBE0/ref=asc_df_B0161ACBE057999973/?tag=googshopuk-21&creative=22110&creativeASIN=B0161ACBE0&linkCode=df0&hvadid=226630155727&hvpos=1o7&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18031013666585193606&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006745&hvtargid=pla-387791301993&th=1&psc=1 with a pay as you go data sim - maybe this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love2surf-Three-Broadband-International-Calling/dp/B01J1KI9AW/ref=sr_1_6?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1547307925&sr=1-6&keywords=data sim which has a 12 month expiry and easy top up, so you can just plug it in for them and just top it up with a voucher.

Depending upon usage, this will last quite a while. For general surfing, probably most of the year, but if they want to stream movies, maybe significantly less - a month or 2.

kah22

Thanks guys, there is some very useful information in there

outoftheknow

As @noiseboy72 points out an extender takes a signal if reasonable strength and pumps it out again stronger (near enough). If the signal in the room was good enough for the Netgear to use in the room for example, you would just connect your wireless device. If the signal is too weak in the room, the extender definitely needs to be plugged in between the router and the room.

I have the Netgear but I use it for its Ethernet ports. My Foxtel (your Sky) box needs wired and has no wireless so I use the Netgear at the box, in the same room as my router. No trouble using it that way but I connect nothing to the wifi it pumps out.

outoftheknow

Also I suspect the business has a router in place just about capable of serving devices in the common room. If you (and potentially others) extend it into private rooms the service may become useless to all. The extenders are not handling NAT so every connection adds tk the router and it may not be too flash if there is no intention of it handling every device in every room.

You can be selfish with the Netgear and presumably all others by adding a different password to get onto the “ext” network of course. Your wall wart device in the corridor will then be open to being unplugged and thrown away by anybody not happy they can’t use it( including facility manager who may not be happy as above that their router isn’t designed to meet this demand)