[Wolves] Increasing wireless coverage

[Adam Sweet]

Hi everyone.

My house has solid brick walls and the wireless signal degrades badly 
through the house. Due to problems with ADSL performance in the past 
(regarding which I got nowhere with BT), my router is tied to being next 
to the master phone socket, which is just inside the front door. 
Consequently, the wireless signal barely reaches the living room and 
kitchen at the other end of the house. It is fine in all other rooms 
which are in between.

In the past I've moved the router to a room next to the 2 problem rooms 
but the ADSL signal degraded by a Mb or two and the wireless signal was 
still relatively poor in the problem rooms. I think the wall must be 
made of lead or something.

My router is a BT business hub by 2wire and I believe you can increase 
the signal strength on some models, though I think mine might one of the 
versions where this isn't possible. What I would like to do is to put a 
wireless repeater or something just outside the problems rooms which 
would pick up the reasonably good signal in the hallway and extend it 
into living room and kitchen.

What I would like to know is what would be the best way of doing that. 
Signal booster? Omnidirectional antenna? Wireless repeater? Can anybody 
recommend which would be a better bet and suggest a piece of kit for the 
job? I have no experience of the best way of doing this or the kit involved.

Many thanks :)

Adam Sweet

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http://blog.adamsweet.org/