Advice needed on Broadband range/strength extender/booster

[Marcusaurelius]

My wife and I live in a newish flat and immediately below us in a smaller one bed flat lives my elderly mother. We have optic fibre BB upstairs and with a well positioned 'NetGear' range extender, my mother has a sufficiently strong BB signal downstairs for her needs, that is until this week. Something has changed and her signal is quite dreadful and I suspect it is permanent caused perhaps by one of the many high rise developments going up, plus of course the increased demand for BB due home workers. I have alternated all of our computers and the problem is the signal not the computer. I would like recommendations for boosting her BB reception over and above our existing 'NetGear' extender which seems no longer able to cope. I know a little about power line adapter but surely this will not be suitable for our needs as I understand a continuous electric domestic wiring installation is needed and we are in two separate flats. I really don't want to go into a 'Mesh' installation because of the cost, the setting up difficulty (?) and mindful her needs are hardly demanding - 3 hours per day total to read the news, e mails to friends but no sapping downloads or video games. A wired connection from our router will not be possible for many reasons, it really has to be WiFi. Help !!

 

[jimscreechy]

Hmm I'm not really too certain given some of your terms are a little confusing,
" We have optic fibre BB upstairs and with a well positioned 'NetGear' range extender, my mother has a sufficiently strong BB signal downstairs"
So a router with wireless and another range extender, do you know what type of wirless devices? I will assume A/C since they seem to be the most common these days.

Yes powerline range extenders need to be on the same circuit, and though it is 'technically' possible for them to work outside this configuration, it is neither supported or recommended... since by the very nature of how they are designed, they try to prevent data transfer outside the confines of a domesticity.

If you've not had any structural changes to your dwellings, such as erecting a faraday cage around your mothers flat, your problem is probably as you say, due to increased traffic from more people 'soaking' the airwaves with wireless traffic. Most modern routers will automatically change channels according to the signals they detect in use around them. So its quite possible this has happed which has affected the range of your extender to your mother's flat. The eaisiest thing to to do would be to use the wireless equivalent of the power range extenders ie, one in your flat and (on the floor lets say for ease of transmission) and one in hers (on the ceiling) which effectively provide her a link to to your internet service. Since the one in her flat would be local to her she should get a good signal.

 

[Marcusaurelius]

Thank you very much Jim for your comprehensive and easily understood reply. You have answered this query and I now know how to proceed. Much appreciate your time. Best M