A question about wi-fi extenders: We live in an old, rambling, two storey farmhouse that wanders all over the place. Our RBI gateway is upstairs to be close to the antenna. Where we need it to work is mainly two downstairs rooms in opposite directions from the gateway. At both locations the signal is weak with frequent drop-outs. I would really like to get the wi-fi to work (cables are difficult and I just had a very unsatisfactory experience with a powerline network device). I am thinking about an extender but I can't really place it closer to both areas where I need reception. Of course the ads all claim fantastic performance from a boosted signal but it occurs to me that even if the extender is throwing out 10 watts of RF or whatever, won't the bottleneck be the return signal from the computer? This is my question. If an extender with a more powerful signal is no closer to the client machine, can it still be an improvement if the signal coming back from the client is no stronger? What makes the extender better in a case like this?
↧