Increase Your Wi-Fi Signal

Currently my office is located in a duplex building (concrete floors) that houses several shops, storage areas, a restaurant and other office space. I am using a Netgear DG834 router for my wireless internet access, but have been having problems with it.

Basically the router seems to have issues with the floors and walls. As I am involved with several projects I am needed in different parts of the building, so having my laptop and an internet connection is essential. The problem is, the Netgear DG834 signals dies outside a 20 meter radius. That sounds crazy, but it’s true. I guess it just doesn’t like our steel-reinforced concrete floors and all the shop rails.

So, I have fiddled about with the router and have come up with a few ways of boosting the WiFi signal. Some of these are worth trying, some of them are obviously not going to look very professional.

1. Strategic positioning - Say you want to cover a floor with WiFi. There’s no point having your wireless access point in the corner of the room because the area that it can then distribute a signal to is much reduced. Instead, plan out where you want to cover and work out where the best place is to station your router. If you have a nice big open, flat office space then I would recommend setting up the router in the middle of the floor. This way the omni-directional antenna (an type of antenna that radiates the signal) can distribute more evenly over a greater area. In a duplex situation, placing the router on a ceiling in the middle of the building is a good way to radiate the signal further and stronger.
2. Mount the router on the wall - My WiFi coverage was at it’s worst when I had my router sitting at the back of my desk. If you want to boost the signal, a cheap and easy way to do so is to simply wall-mount the thing. This will increase the distance between it and all the possible interference around your computer.
3. Buy an antenna - There are a multitude of booster antennas on the market at very reasonable prices. The idea is that you plug them into your router then direct the signal in a certain direction, in my case, up through the floor to where I needed more coverage. Try using a high gain (gain is the measure of how well the signal is focussed) directional antenna to increase the range and strength of a network in the direction pointed.
4. Add extra access points - One of the ways that really helped boost my WiFi signal was by adding an extra access point in the upper floor of the building. I chose the Airport Express from Apple, but then I am a bit of an Apple geek … so what else could I do? The Airport Express also allows you to hook up to a Hi-Fi and stream songs to it from iTunes, as well as being able to hook up to a USB printer.
5. Try a repeater - If you don’t want to spend on an extra access point, then try a repeater. What a repeater does is receive the WiFi signal, then repeat it, hence the name. But it means that the repeater must be inside the range of the WiFi network, otherwise it won’t receive a signal in the first place. Linksys, Netgear and Belkin all make repeaters, and they’re typically quite affordable. The added extra is that they do not require an extra cabling as they receive the signal wirelessly, instead of via an Ethernet cable.
6. Add a powerline extender - Netgear now have a range of powerline extenders that send a signal via a powerline, instead of over an Ethernet cable. Plug one into your router and another into a power socket in a poorly covered area, set it up and away you go. Just be sure that you are all on the same circuit, otherwise it will not work.

And now for some of the more wacky / DIY options.

1. Homemade Pringles antenna - Eat a packet of Pringles (ready salted would be my choice) then follow this tutorial to convert it into a functioning directional antenna. Point it where you need a signal boost.
2. Airport Express & kitchen sieve - Take an Airport Express and set it into a common metallic kitchen sieve to boost it’s signal further.
3. Try a parabolic dish - Hawking make a 802.11 B/G parabolic dish that basically pulls in a WiFi signal, performs some magic and boosts your range by up to 300%! It only costs $80 and it has a cool retro style.
4. Cantenna - This is basically a pro version of the Pringles tin hack. For $50 you can buy a Cantenna that plugs into your router and extends your WiFi signal. It also looks cool.

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