Netgear wireless G range?

Question

Planning on putting a Netgear wireless G router in my living room to connect to two computers, mine is about 40 feet away in a different room, will the signal strength be good or bad, or none at all?

Answer 1

It all depends on your setup and conditions in/around the house.  Most situations a G router should have range of about 100-500 feet (more outdoors than through walls).

Walls, insulation, wireing, brick, and metal can all degrade the connection, it's somewhat trial-and-error.  One or two walls shouldn't cause any trouble at all though.

Put your wireless router as high up as you can and as far from electrical and metal things as you can, that'll give you the best coverage.  Try to put it in the middle of where you expect to be (usually the middle of the house).  If you have 2.4GHz cordless phones you may want to replace them with 5.8GHz, 900MHz, or the new DECT6.0 phones that won't cause interference.  Also, wireless video senders, or wireless cameras that run on 2.4GHz should be set to the farthest channel from your router (e.g. set video sender to 1 or A and put the router on channel 11).

If you really need more range after positioning your router as best you can, some companies sell "WiFi Repeaters" that re-transmit the information stronger to boost the signal.  If you can run wires, get an "Access Point" or a router that can be configured as an access point (a second router would cause problems) and set it to the same SSID (name) and Encryption key (security) - then computers will pick whichever is strongest.

I suppose you could always try making one of these, it will decrease the range on one side but increase range wherever it's pointed.  I was able to get from 40-60% up to 85-95% in my basement.  For free (well ok, a sheet of cooking foil, some glue, and cardstock or photopaper), it's worth a try...

http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/tem...