Wi-Fi Range Extenders

And you might well be thinking “What on Earth is a Wi-Fi range extender?”

And the answer is that a Wi-Fi range extender is well, pretty much what it sounds like!

A Wi-Fi range extender is a reasonable small device about the size of a Wi-Fi router (about 7-8” square) and its purpose is to extend the range of your wireless network. And if you have Wi-Fi installed in your house and your house is a cozy one like mine then you may not need a Wi-Fi Range Extender because you can use your iPad or laptop in any room of your hour house and easily connect to the Internet, download music and stream movies and videos to your iPad or laptop or listen to Pandora whenever via you want seamlessly.

However, if you have a large house and your router is located in your study on the first floor in the front of the house you may find that when you are in a room of your house that is far away from your router; say in a bedroom on the third floor and in the back of the house– that you either receive a weak Wi-Fi signal or you have what is known as a Wi-Fi dead zone and you simply cannot connect to the Internet in that room or that part of the house. So if you have a situation like that then you either can’t connect to the Internet in that room or your connection is so slow that it takes long minutes for emails to come through and if you try and stream Netflix content to your laptop or television via your Roku player than your videos frequently stop and you have to wait for video buffering…if that is the case than you might want to consider buying a Wi-Fi range extender as that should fix the problem! After you install a Wi-Fi range extender in your house you should be able to easily connect to the Internet in the portion of your house where you were having trouble connecting to the Internet before; thus you’d be able to easily stream Netflix videos to that bedroom on the third floor of your house and get your send and receive emails in the usual quick fashion.

Not surprisingly my Wi-Fi range extender ponderings this morning were prompted by a news story on the subject – this one in the New York Times. David Pogue, the New York Times tech guru, offers a neat practical example of how a Wi-Fi range extender can improve your Internet connecting life in an article tilted Wi-Fi for Every Room in the Apartment. Here’s the link:

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/wi-fi-for-every-room-in-the-apartment/

And if you want to know even more about the technical side of Wi-Fi range extenders here’s a link to a CNET article, titled Home Networking Explained Part 2 Optimizing Your Wi-Fi Network, on that subject:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57493114-1/home-networking-explained-part-2-optimizing-your-wi-fi-network/

And as you’ll note that last link is for part 2 of an article from CNET regarding Home Networking basics – so here, just FYI, is the link to the first article titled Home networking explained: Here’s the URL for you CNET:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57485724-1/home-networking-explained-heres-the-url-for-you/

Have a great day!

Linda R.

References

Ngo, Dong. (2013, February 13). Home networking explained: Here’s the URL for you CNET editor Dong Ngo gives all his answers to questions about the basics of home networking. CNET. Revised Edition. Online.

Ngo, Dong. (2012, August 17). CNET News Crave Home networking explained, Part 2: Optimizing your Wi-Fi …Home networking explained, Part 2: Optimizing your Wi-Fi network. CNET. Online.

Pogue, David. (2013, March 7). Wi-Fi for Every Room in the House. New York Times. Online.