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Question

wi fi extender

by Oct 12, 2015 1:27PM PDT

I will start by apologising for my lack of technical knowledge so please bare with me.

I have Virgin Media BB with a VM Superhub router (netgear). THis provides decent wifi around the house.

i work from home in one of the rooms upstairs. To improve my speed and reliability i use a pair of Solwise homeplugs. One cabled to the Superhub and plugged in next to it (downstairs) and my work computer wired into the 2nd homeplug upstairs. Works very well.

I have just converted the garage into a living space and the Wifi is very poor in there (probably to do with the insulated walls).

Now the easier option would be to extend the homeplug network into the converted garage. Unfortunately this is on a seperate mains ring so wont work.

So i am now looking at plugging into a socket a wifi extender such as TP-Link WA850 or Netgear WN3000RP.

Does anyone use these with the VM superhub and can advsie on their suitability? Or indeed suggest any other ones.

finally this may seen a daft question but would having a wifi extender cause any issues with the homeplugs ??

thanks for any help

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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Answer
Extenders drop speeds.
by Forum moderator Oct 12, 2015 1:49PM PDT

The packet gets received then resent. That's a speed drop by about half.

Any decent electrician can rejigger the mains or is the breaker box in that area? A cheap trick I used was to install an AC outlet right there by the box on the right mains side for the next powerline WiFi spot.

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wifi extender
by cityfan247 Oct 13, 2015 12:32AM PDT

my BB is around 150mbps so the speed drop is not an issue. It would really be for surfing web and maybe playing some video on the tv in there. I plan to hook up an apple tv or chromecast in there.

It is on an independent breaker box to the box in the main house so thats why the homeplugs wouldnt work.

Was concerned if a wifi extender would cause an issue with the homeplugs

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Then I have to write
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Oct 13, 2015 7:06AM PDT

You won't know till you try. I will share that extenders are never sold or supported by my office due to the nature of the beast. Folk got too upset by how they drop speed and wanted us to fix that and more. Since 802.11n has all but one channel, the entire WiFi network speed took a hit. So again, I never advise to use them except as a last resort.

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