Imagine a scenario that I'm sure many of you already encounter. You've just got a lovely new high speed internet connection and as part of the package you've received a new ISP branded router that promises to offer the best wireless coverage of any internet provider that spreads to every corner of the globe (slight exaggeration may be found here). You feel chuffed by this but soon after you've got everything set up, you soon start to realise that the coverage is not as great as you was expecting. This is something that many people experience and soon after moaning at the ISP for false advertising with their routers signal, they realise that it's not so much a fault with the equipment but more a case that the wireless signal is not able to penetrate through the walls and floors due to the type of construction or materials used to build the house. Concrete, bricks and metal work for example are all items that wireless signals hate. My home as I've mentioned before is a typical example of this. Having solid brick walls all over the place is bad news for me when I'm trying to get online from the front of the house. Whilst there is a signal there, the speed that I experience has dropped considerably and when I'm trying to use interactive services on my TV, the poor signal has an effect on the QoS (Quality of Service) that I experience.

One option is to setup a powerline, but not only are these more targetted for wired devices, but they require two plugs and a little extra cost to get everything going. I'm not ruling them out as I think that they are fantastic bits of kit, so much so that we use them in the office and I use them at home. For wireless devices such as mobile phones, tablets, ultrabooks and so on, they really need the strength of the signal to be boosted and consequently we find items such as the RP-N53 Range Expander from Asus come in to play.



Link: eTeknix