How can WiFi signals be increased on the router itself?

Question

A friend of mine is living with his parents, and he is now facing a problem. The router used by his network was previously located in a room next to him, but now it moved two levels downstairs, and he is now receiving very lackluster signal.

He tried the following options:

• Use Repeaters to reinforce the signal strength on the way from the router to his computer. However, those seemingly don't make much of a difference as he says.
• dLAN. However, this also does not work, as the plug used by the router is using a different power supply system as his computer does.

Relocating of the router is sadly not an option. I would like to help him to figure out a solution, and I guess we need to tackle the problem on the router side itself.

My proposals for now would have been to try different channels, but I am not sure if that would help, as the problem simply seems to be the distance.

I also read up on using an external antenna to provide stronger signal.

Is there any advice I could give him to help?

Edit: His model is a fritz box 6490 cable

Answer 1

There are a couple of options I can think of:

• First, is use a high gain antenna. They are easy to install, since you simply screw them in by hand. Be sure to purchase the appropriate one or more for your WiFi router. I have found these to be extremely useful in increasing the range and signal strength of WiFi signals. However, WiFi is finicky and there is no guarantee the high gain antennas can overcome every obstacle.

• Secondly, there is powerline networking. Using adapters, you can send ethernet over the house's internal wiring. This will allow a high speed ethernet connection from the router to another room in the house. Obviously, this is a wired connection, so if he has to have wireless a repeater or another wireless AP can be added. Again, there are no guarantees this will work, as there are a variety of factors that will affect performance. However, I have been using powerline networking for years in multiple houses.

Answer 2

I would suggest using a pair of directional transceivers. Connect one near the router to one of its LAN ports. Connect one near where your friend is to an access point.

You can use any directional transceivers you want. I happen to be familiar with Ubiquiti's products and have very good luck with them. A pair of Loco M5's would work fine as would a pair of LiteBeam 5AC's. The LiteBeam M5 is a bit slower but retails for $49 per end. Though not really designed to go through walls and floors, they will do so with some reduction in range and speed. Given that their designed range and speed is measure in KMs and hundreds of megabits per second, this reduction should be quite tolerable.

Answer 3

your question isn't very specific, models and makes help alot. but yes on some wireless routers you can increase signal strength through broadcast settings, increase the tx power (transmission power) it can vary greatly from router to router so i can't go into specifics.

but to be honest, through 2 floors is a fair bit, expecially if on the 5ghz band. i would personally run a ethernet cable and add another access point, something from ubiquiti maybe.

or look into a few edimax Smart wifi extender's, pretty cheap and can be very helpful.