Extending Wifi wireless range of Livebox?

[Punch]

 

Does anyone know if it's possible to extend the range of Wifi coverage from a Livebox with some kind of booster? Coverage at one end of the house is less than satisfactory and I would also like to extend coverage externally for summer use in the garden. Has anyone had similar problems?

 

[PossumGirl]

deleted for double post

[PossumGirl]

I know that wifi doesn't like going through stone walls.  We get great range up and down between floors, but less than great on a horizontal axis.  We had the same problem with our wireless thermostat and had to change the room in which we kept it.

I do know that FT was advertising some gadget so that you could keep your Livebox in one room and connect the TV in another.  You'd have to root around on their site to see if they still offer it and if it will do what you want.  Good luck.

(edited myself due to brain freeze)

PG

[Deimos]

Yes. Some Access Points will act as wireless repeaters (i.e. not on the network cable just stand-alone and powered). Performance drops a bit, particularly if you have more than "one hop" to get to the cable.

Connected to the network cable it acts as a standard Access Point, but should there be no network cable (or should the cable break/be disconnected/etc.) them it will fall back to wireless mode, searching for another (the most appropriate neighbour) and then communicate through the selected Access Point. Its a true routing system and not an RF booster.

However, some/many of the cheap Access Points available from the high street shops these days do not include this functionality and you need the "next model up" in their range (or several models up). Don't know about French retail outlets knowledge over specific Access Point technical details, but in the UK, many high street retailers do not have much clue about the capabilities of their products in this regard.

Ian

[Bob T]

You can buy different aerials for normal WiFi modem routers, but I think that the livebox has the aerial internal. Get rid of it and buy a modem router, they are better anyway.

[shimble]

i agress with the last post the livebox is useless you can buy a high power turbo modem router from netscape i think it costs 140euros and should be powerfull enough to go through walls i can give you the exact model number if you want post here and ill hunt out the model number

[Punch]

Thanks everyone for the useful info- I've never liked the livebox but will probably hang on to it until next summer. In the meantime I have found this geeky link! It gives some great ways of extending wifi range using kitchen utensils!!

http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/

 

[Bob T]

I use a Netgear 834 modem router with good range through walls etc. I bought mine from www.cdiscount.com for around 80 euros.

[Deimos]

When changing antennae be careful as the power density is limited (in order to be de-regulated). Whilst I accept you are unlikely to be arrested for transmitting at too high a power, you should also remember that the frequency is the microwave frequency - the one you use to cook with in your microwave oven. The actual frequency is close to the mid point of the frequency range emitted by a microwave oven (hence the possibility that a microwave oven will interfere with the RF signal.

US actually allow higher output - so many Access Points now actually have software selectable power outputs (so same hardware can be used in US and Europe). However the US system only uses 12 channels.

Most of the antenna these consumer models are supplied with are pretty rubbish (keeps production costs low). For the same reason, a decent antenna is more expensive - to the point where using a repeater can be cheaper than buying a decent antenna. Other considerations are the nature of the environment. How successful a better antenna will be (and which type of antenna is best) will depend on the causes of poor reception. The Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum can operate at decent performance at exceptionally low signal levels (e.g. below the background noise level) provided the signal quality is good. How best to address reception problems will depend on the causes of the reception problems - just whacking on a bigger antenna could actually make things worse under some circumstances.

Ian