Do you want faster or better WiFi?

You’re not alone. In a recent survey, we found that approximately 50% of consumers want faster and more reliable WiFi. Maybe you want faster speeds overall, or maybe you’re looking to fix a dead spot in your wireless coverage where the signal barely reaches. Surfing slows down to a crawl, and forget about streaming a video or gaming.

If you want to improve your home’s wireless network, it might be time to try wires. But don’t worry, we’re not expecting you to plug your laptop into an Ethernet cable or undertake a costly rewiring project. Rather, the right solution might be a wired network extender. This offers the best of both worlds: the convenience of WiFi with the reliability and robustness of wires. Best of all, it’s affordable and can be installed in minutes.

Before we dive into the details of network extenders, let’s cover some basics about home WiFi. A router’s wireless signal travels a finite distance. This means that wireless devices farther away from the router will manage to get only 10-50 percent of the bandwidth compared with clients closer to the router. In addition, common architectural features of the home, like walls and floors, can impact the wireless signal and make it more difficult to reach certain areas of the home.

This might be why, your WiFi is so slow in the upstairs bedroom or family room. For example, let’s imagine the wireless router is at one end of the home, and when you try to watch an online video on your laptop at the other end of the house, you get stutters and long buffering pauses.

There are two different methods that can improve the wireless network performance at the far end of the house: WiFi repeaters (wireless only) and WiFi extenders (wired-wireless).

WiFi Extenders vs. WiFi Repeaters

The first type of wireless repeater that emerged on the scene was a basic WiFi repeater. This wireless device is installed somewhere in between the wireless router and the area of the home that needs a signal boost. WiFi repeaters basically catch a wireless signal and then rebroadcast it, giving you a stronger signal at the far end.

However, there’s a big catch: using a wireless repeater cuts in half the potential speed of a device’s network connection. That’s because that one radio basically needs to flip-flop between transmitting and receiving the new signal.

A WiFi extender, sometimes called a wireless network extender or wired-wireless network extender, works a little differently. This device uses both wired and wireless technologies to bring a wireless signal to an area of the home where network coverage has been weak (or non-existent).

The WiFi extender first uses a wired connection to travel throughout the home. That means you benefit from the reliability and high speed of cables, instead of relying solely on wireless signals. Don’t worry, you won’t have to add any more wires to your home; these WiFi extenders use your home’s existing wiring: MoCA-based solutions use your coax cabling and Powerline solutions use your electrical wiring.

An independent test found that Kiwee’s MoCA WiFi network extender surpassed popular WiFi repeaters (WiFi mesh extenders) by several hundred Mbps.

You can add a WiFi extender near the area of your home that needs a wireless boost – you just need either a coax jack (MoCA) or power outlet (Powerline) nearby. The extender takes the wired network signal and converts it to a strong wireless signal in the new area. And, as an added bonus, a newer network extender can even give a major performance boost to your home network by adding the fast speeds of 802.11ac. Even if your wireless router doesn’t support 802.11ac, you can still add an 802.11ac network extender to your home and upgrade your home to the latest technology.

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Doesn’t it seem like WiFi in the home is getting slower with speeds crawling along and dropped or no WiFi signal? Consider the requirements we put on our WiFi router: streaming TV shows, movies and music while we’re texting, emailing and playing online games. Did you know that one streaming HD TV show needs about 1,000 Megabits (Mbps) of internet speed per hour while a 4k stream requires even more to the tune of over 25 Megabits per second!

That’s a lot of WiFi signal demands for one router to handle. What you need is a Wi-Fi home network that gives you consistent high-speed WiFi at 900 Mbps or better and WiFi coverage in every corner of you home.

Boost Wi-Fi around your home now to ensure quality streaming

Getting that secure high speed 900 Mbps or better Wi-Fi boost isn’t difficult. It does requires scoping out three elements of your WiFi: age and capabilities of your wireless equipment; measuring your current wireless router speeds and adding Wireless Network Extenders or Wired Wireless Network Extenders along with your existing Wi-Fi router.

Wireless Equipment

Ditching your old 2015 or earlier Wi-Fi router for a newer model with greater WiFi strength and newer 802.11ac Wi-Fi capabilities can help network performance. Learn more information about swapping out older equipment here (hyperlink: ‘Simple Tips to Improve your Home’s Wi-Fi’). Keep in mind, replacing an old existing Wi-Fi router is just step one. You’ve still got WiFi devices all over your house that need quality WiFi.

Measuring wireless router speeds

Next, test the speed of your WiFi router. ISPs typically have web tools on their home page you can use to measure those speeds. Also review your current service level agreement to understand the contracted speeds guaranteed by your ISP.

Your Wi-Fi router’s speed, location and type of wireless connectivity (802.11 ac or older 802.11 b/g/n) as well as the physical distance from your WiFi devices to a good WiFi signal are extremely important. Remember, a WiFi router’s wireless signal has a limited reach. Once your WiFi device goes beyond that reach, you experience snail crawl WiFi speeds or no WiFi at all.

If you’ve confirmed router speed as slower than slow while WiFi devices are all over your home, you’ll need to enhance speed and performance by bringing a quality WiF source to your WiFi devices. I call it bridging the WiFi gap. To get that WiFi source and bridge WiFi gaps, you may need is to add a Wireless Network Extender or Wireless Wired Network

Wireless and Wireless Network Extenders boost with backhaul

Backhaul is that physical gap from your Wi-Fi router’s signal to your wireless devices. For example, if your Wi-Fi router is in the downstairs den and your favorite 4K wireless device is in the upstairs bedroom, then the backhaul is the gap of Wi-Fi existing between the 4K bedroom and the den.

Except for the smallest of homes, you bridge that gap (backhaul) with a Wireless Network Extender or Wireless Wired Network Extender. Even third party testing confirms using a Wireless Wired Network Extender provides the best Wi-Fi boost at 900 Mbps or better.

Wireless Wired Network Extenders including Kiwee’s WCB6200Q combine the ease of WiFi with a wired network backhaul using WiFi, Ethernet, MoCA technology and your existing TV coax cabling. These Wireless Wired Network Extenders offer 900 Mbps or better Wi-Fi boost in speeds.

Now you can simultaneously stream those 4K movies, watch an HD TV show, participate in the latest CS:GO team strike and catch up on after-work emails knowing your WiFi is speeding along at 900 Mbps or more.