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Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows)
What is a good wifi extender solution for Windows laptops in Europe?
My college-age daughter is traveling in the summer to visit old-school relatives in Europe who are still on dialup, but they live next door to my sister in law who owns the apartment next door with basic WiFi but it has a very weak signal at the grandparents location. My inlaws (her grandparents) are fine with dialup access, but she (my daughter) will be bored to death if she has no laptop wifi access without visiting my sister-in-law in law next door (which is effort, especially since she is working while the grandparents are pensioners). My daughter's phone is T-Mobile, which has 2G wifi access in Europe, which is dog slow, and which is not complete and it's not a laptop besides. So, I'm trying to work out a good solution for the Windows laptop. Maybe a router for the apartment? Maybe a wifi extender for the computer? Is there something I can plug into her laptop which will give her much better access to the weak signal from my brother's router in the next apartment over? Or, is there something I can leave with the grandparents, like a router which will pick up and amplify and repeat the signal from next door? The SSID and password aren't the problem. The problem is getting a better signal strength. The distance is about 20 meters through thick concrete walls. I won't be there to set it up, but I'm looking for a good device to have my daughter pack on the trip to Europe to extend the wifi range of the laptop any way we can.Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows) |
#2
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Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows)
On 5/14/2015 4:47 PM, Werner Obermeier wrote:
What is a good wifi extender solution for Windows laptops in Europe? My college-age daughter is traveling in the summer to visit old-school relatives in Europe who are still on dialup, but they live next door to my sister in law who owns the apartment next door with basic WiFi but it has a very weak signal at the grandparents location. My inlaws (her grandparents) are fine with dialup access, but she (my daughter) will be bored to death if she has no laptop wifi access without visiting my sister-in-law in law next door (which is effort, especially since she is working while the grandparents are pensioners). My daughter's phone is T-Mobile, which has 2G wifi access in Europe, which is dog slow, and which is not complete and it's not a laptop besides. So, I'm trying to work out a good solution for the Windows laptop. Maybe a router for the apartment? Maybe a wifi extender for the computer? Is there something I can plug into her laptop which will give her much better access to the weak signal from my brother's router in the next apartment over? Or, is there something I can leave with the grandparents, like a router which will pick up and amplify and repeat the signal from next door? The SSID and password aren't the problem. The problem is getting a better signal strength. The distance is about 20 meters through thick concrete walls. I won't be there to set it up, but I'm looking for a good device to have my daughter pack on the trip to Europe to extend the wifi range of the laptop any way we can.Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows) Just google for wifi repeater or wifi range extender and take your pick. BTW, when using T-Mobile overseas it is possible to buy a short-term data package which gets you a quantity of high-speed data over and above their normal slow roaming data. I used this when I was in Ireland last spring and it worked out very nicely and the coverage was superb over most of the country. I don't know if this could be used to tether a phone to a laptop but it seems likely that it might work. |
#3
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Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows)
Werner Obermeier wrote:
What is a good wifi extender solution for Windows laptops in Europe? My college-age daughter is traveling in the summer to visit old-school relatives in Europe who are still on dialup, but they live next door to my sister in law who owns the apartment next door with basic WiFi but it has a very weak signal at the grandparents location. My inlaws (her grandparents) are fine with dialup access, but she (my daughter) will be bored to death if she has no laptop wifi access without visiting my sister-in-law in law next door (which is effort, especially since she is working while the grandparents are pensioners). My daughter's phone is T-Mobile, which has 2G wifi access in Europe, which is dog slow, and which is not complete and it's not a laptop besides. So, I'm trying to work out a good solution for the Windows laptop. Maybe a router for the apartment? Maybe a wifi extender for the computer? Is there something I can plug into her laptop which will give her much better access to the weak signal from my brother's router in the next apartment over? Or, is there something I can leave with the grandparents, like a router which will pick up and amplify and repeat the signal from next door? The SSID and password aren't the problem. The problem is getting a better signal strength. The distance is about 20 meters through thick concrete walls. I won't be there to set it up, but I'm looking for a good device to have my daughter pack on the trip to Europe to extend the wifi range of the laptop any way we can.Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows) There are regional differences. USA is Channel 1-11, with 1,6,11 giving nice non-overlapping coverage. Europe allows usage of Channel 12 and 13. A visitor from USA to Europe, if the European router is set to Channel 12 or Channel 13, then a USA Wifi adapter may not be able to connect (immediately). So don't let a failed result cause you to conclude it cannot work. A user here has a solution. While there is the notion of a Region setting, according to a person here, an amendment allows the Wifi system to use country information to select channel range. And remain compliant with the RF emitter rules of the country you are in. http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/s...9-31a07a14a307 http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs...de/Channel.pdf What I found weird, is I could find lots of instances of "1-6-11" information, for the rational North American choices, but I couldn't find examples of how the Europeans choose their default channels when they have two more channels total available. ******* The grandparents could experiment with a laptop or mobile device, in the apartment in question. If the sister-in-law has a Wifi router, then the sister-in-law has some Wifi device she uses. Take that device and use it for a site survey, in the apartment in question. If a "normal" device works fine (i.e. the device is already primed and set up to work with the router anyway), then there is no reason to panic and look for ways to augment the USA laptop (except for the details of region setting or enabling 802.11d). If no signal is available through the concrete wall, since it's an apartment, you would be looking at balconies as a way to pick up a signal. The higher the frequency, the poorer the penetration capability. For example, at 5GHz, you definitely won't go through multiple concrete walls. At 900Mhz (a frequency used by the fire department for radio equipment), they stand a better chance of going through concrete (but not, say, a web of steel beams). In the office building I used to work in, absolutely no signals used to go through the windows with the aluminum frames, and the steel framework of the building. Only the multitude of 100MHz base clocks for computers could be detected (in other words, the RF leakage from computers inside the building, presented a powerful carrier at 100MHz of the FM band). ******* If you want a wacky solution, if you're in an apartment building, the Wifi may still work if there is an adjacent building across the street, and you can "bounce" the signal off that building. After all, if multipath can affect Wifi negatively, it could also work positively to connect two devices. ******* You can use powerline adapters, but it depends on how electrical distribution is done in the buildings, as to whether the signals imposed on the power wires, will "reach" the other apartment. For example, in North America, when this first came out, some people were screwing around with bridging the two phases on 230V AC with a small capacitor, so that a powerline adapter on one phase in the house, could communicate with a second powerline adapter elsewhere in the house. (The capacitor is selected so as to not conduct significantly at 60Hz.) Apparently, European power distribution is done differently than here, and it changes the best practices for using these. http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/powerline.html Ham radio operators hate those things, and really, given their crude design, I don't blame them. That's why I picked an article which discusses the issue. ******* There will always be at least one person in the crowd to recommend one of these. http://i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/1...ic-Antenna.jpg Unlicensed operation of Wifi devices, works in terms of this measure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equival...radiated_power When you slap a parabolic antenna on the Wifi device, it squirts the power out into a "beam". The power is more concentrated in the center of the beam. The Wifi regulations use the power in the center of the beam, to set the limit. The Wifi normally comes with a low gain (omnidirectional) antenna, so it doesn't beam very much. The transmitter can use more power at its level, because the antenna has no large gain to speak of. When you use the parabolic antenna, now the signal is a hundred times stronger in the center of the beam. Without too much effort, you can exceed the unlicensed limits. Now, end users never worry about this, and in the real world, it takes a "complaint" to a radio regulating body, to have someone kick down your door. No radio amateur would expect to pass a signal at the same frequency as Wifi, so the only person who might care about your excessive power, would be another Wifi user who cannot use their gear. So for the most part, "you're safe". If the router had a dish like that, and the laptop had one, you might get some signal through the wall. But a better prospect, would be pointing both antennas at the building across the street, and using it as a reflector. The higher the gain of an antenna like that, the narrower the beamwidth. I built my own antenna for OTA digital TV reception, and it had a beamwidth of 15 degrees or so. And it was a bit hard to "aim" at the TV transmitter and get the signal level maximized. If you use two antennas, and try to aim them at one another, it can be tricky to complete the alignment process. You really want a signal strength meter that works in real time, and gives good feedback as you wave the things around. ******* Personally, for a person traveling, I would only consider a tech solution that fits in the laptop bag, as a candidate. And I don't really see any solution that is *guaranteed* to work when you get there. If the people living there can do the site survey and setup of a technology solution, then that would work for a traveler. But expecting to bring half of Radio Shack in your suitcase, and try and cobble a solution together when you get there, you know that's not going to work. You could look at what it would cost to set up a wired service in the apartment in question. Like, could a broadband modem be rented and service set up with a local provider for two months ? If so, that may be a more practical solution than playing "radio engineer". Paul |
#4
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Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows)
On Thu, 14 May 2015 20:47:50 +0000 (UTC), Werner Obermeier
wrote: What is a good wifi extender solution for Windows laptops in Europe? My college-age daughter is traveling in the summer to visit old-school relatives in Europe who are still on dialup, but they live next door to my sister in law who owns the apartment next door with basic WiFi but it has a very weak signal at the grandparents location. If it's truly next door, I'd be tempted to take along an Ethernet cable and an access point, after checking with the S-I-L to make sure there's an Ethernet port available in her apartment. Connect one end of the Ethernet cable to your S-I-L's network, then run the cable out the patio door or window, across to the next apartment, and inside. There, connect the Ethernet cable to the access point and you're done. Pay attention to the type of power plug on the access point, as well as the power itself, if bringing networking hardware from another country. It won't win any beauty prizes, but it's temporary and it avoids trying to cram a usable signal through all that concrete. |
#5
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Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows)
On Thu, 14 May 2015 20:47:50 +0000 (UTC), Werner Obermeier
wrote: What is a good wifi extender solution for Windows laptops in Europe? My college-age daughter is traveling in the summer to visit old-school relatives in Europe who are still on dialup, but they live next door to my sister in law who owns the apartment next door with basic WiFi but it has a very weak signal at the grandparents location. I had a similar problem with my laptop (Toshiba Satellite), which has a very weak built-in WiFi transmitter/receiver. I've used a bear extentnder, which plugs into the USB port and seems to have solved the problem. http://store.bearextender.com/ -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk |
#6
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Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows)
Steve Hayes wrote in
: I've used a bear extentnder, which plugs into the USB port and seems to have solved the problem. http://store.bearextender.com/ Thank you Steve for that suggestion, as it's a nice 802.11n device that seems to plug into the USB port of a Windows laptop to provide a better radio and antenna. It seems that the PC version is a $50 1.2 Watt transmit power usb device: http://store.bearextender.com/produc...xtender-for-pc It seems to come with both a 2 decibel omnidirectional and a 5 decibel directional antenna, and it comes with an antenna port, so, we can put a different one on if we need to. The sensitivity seems too good to believe, at -96.5 decibels, which is something like 3 or 4 decibels (more than double the sensitivity!) of what I would have expected. It's only 2.4 GHz, but, we can presume the European router is at least that, but, for penetration through concrete walls, who needs 5GHz anyway. It looks like it can also *share* it's connection, as its own portable hotspot using "Connectivity Lite" software. I wonder how it gets enough power? It doesn't say that it connects to the 220VAC mains. A photo on the web page shows 2 USB connections but other photos show only 1: http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/10/b...der-pc-review/ Does it require 2 USB ports? |
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Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows)
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#8
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Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows)
Paul wrote in :
A user here has a solution. While there is the notion of a Region setting, according to a person here, an amendment allows the Wifi system to use country information to select channel range. And remain compliant with the RF emitter rules of the country you are in. This is a great point that the European bands might be different, which has to be considered. I have set up, in the past, a router for WISP, and they always ask the first time what country you are in. I called up Ubiquiti once and asked why, and they said that is so that the laws are never broken. That is, you can *set* the power to anything you like, but, it won't *transmit* power any higher than the laws in that country allow. So, the trick, of course, if figuring out whether the laws allow for higher or lower transmit power in Europe than in the USA. Googling, this web site says the maximum power in the USA is 1Watt (30 decibels) while in Europe, it's a puny 250mW (24 decibels). http://www.afar.net/tutorials/how-far/ Given that the USA allows four times the power that Europe allows, it's probably best to set up a radio for the USA, but, we'll lose the two channels you're speaking of as a trade off against that power gain. |
#9
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Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows)
John McGaw wrote in :
BTW, when using T-Mobile overseas it is possible to buy a short-term data package which gets you a quantity of high-speed data over and above their normal slow roaming data. I used this when I was in Ireland last spring and it worked out very nicely and the coverage was superb over most of the country. I don't know if this could be used to tether a phone to a laptop but it seems likely that it might work. It's a nice option to tether, so that leaves 3 suggested options in toto: 1. WiFi extender on the laptop (about $50) 2. Extend the range of the home broadband router (probably around $50) 3. Tether the cellphone to the laptop (using the data plan) Here in the states, I can either USB tether or set up as a WiFi hotspot both the T-Mobile iPad and iPhone, but, T-Mobile told me that, in Europe, the hotspot and tethering features won't work. So, I think we're left with the first two options. I like #1 because it can be used when back in the states by my daughter (e.g., in her dorm room or while studying outside). I like #2 because it's a gift to the grandparents, which they can use forever, which is where I'm leaning because it has value to them. #2 is harder to set up though, from afar. |
#10
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Traveling in Europe (need good WiFi extension for Windows)
On Thu, 14 May 2015 20:13:15 -0400 "Paul" wrote in
article No radio amateur would expect to pass a signal at the same frequency as Wifi, so the only person who might care about your excessive power, would be another Wifi user who cannot use their gear. Hams for years have been subverting Linksys routers to form ad-hoc mesh networks. The 2.4 GHz band where (some) WiFi happens is shared with the hams. They've built high-gain antennas and amplifiers to hook to the Linksys open source routers. All legal. |
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