The Ultimate Wireless Guide

Extending the Range

If you've tried different locations for your wireless router, but you still have some dead spots around the house, consider a range-extending product. Signal strength is the key to a good Wi-Fi experience because performance drops off dramatically as signal strength decreases. The easiest and cheapest way to increase the range of your network is to replace your router's external antenna with one that is more efficient at transmitting and receiving the signal. Unfortunately, not all routers have removable antennas; the Buffalo and D-Link routers on our chart are two that do.

We looked at the following antennas from Buffalo and Hawking (several other vendors sell range-extending, high-gain antennas): The Hawking HAI6SIP ($35) boosts the signal strength in all directions; the HAI6DSP ($45) boosts the signal strength in only one direction; and the HAI15SC ($55, a corner-mounted model, boosts the signal in a 90-degree spread (for providing coverage to large rooms). The omnidirectional Buffalo WLE-DA ($50) works with only Buffalo routers; all of the Hawking antennas come with adapters that allow them to connect to a wide range of routers.

Smarter Coverage

The unidirectional and corner models gave us a significant increase in signal strength and range during our informal testing inside a typical wood-frame house. The Hawking HAI6SIP omnidirectional antenna, however, offered little improvement, presumably because the built-in antennas on our D-Link and Actiontec test routers (the latter of which didn't make our chart) are very good.

In any case, you should use a directional antenna only when you want to provide coverage to a specific area, because rooms outside a directional antenna's narrow broadcast path will get even weaker signals--if they get any at all.

We also tested a preproduction version of the Hawking HSB1 ($89), a signal booster that connects between the router and the router's stock antenna and amplifies the signal. The HSB1 worked wonders, giving us very good signal strength in all of the dead or low spots we previously had. The HSB1 allows you to adjust the signal strength, so you can boost the signal enough to cover the dead spots without extending the range to your neighbor's house.

In addition, Hawking offers the HWU54D USB adapter ($49). It includes a directional antenna that you can point toward the router and its built-in antenna; the device gave us double the signal strength that we obtained with other USB Wi-Fi adapters.

Becky Waring