Improving Wireless Range: Choosing the Right Equipment

This article is useful for anyone looking to compare how various wireless devices should be used; if Choosing the Best Locations and Tuning Your Equipment don't get the performance you want; or you want a big improvement immediately at a reasonable cost.

The cheaper solutions are first, followed by more expensive, but very powerful ones. A network with more than a few computers may benefit from a combination of approaches.

A New Router

Replace your existing router with a better one. This is recommended if your router is a couple years old. A new router will probably double your coverage in a single area.

Advantages:

• Making the change is likely to be simple.
  
• New NETGEAR routers come with wizards that make basic installation easy, and will probably fit with your existing network with few other changes.
• The newest NETGEAR routers are excellent values.
• New routers such as the WPN824 RangeMax can deal with tricky wireless environments without any tuning at all.

• May require you to also buy new adapters to get all the router benefits.
  
• Isn't best for difficult environments with spotty coverage, or for covering large areas such as entire buildings.