Wouldn’t it be awesome if wireless routers had enough power to provide coverage to an entire home regardless of interference, distance, or building material.  Don’t trust the pictures on the box people.  Try it out yourself.  The best way to get the most coverage in your home is to setup your router in a central location on top of a shelf or desk where it is elevated above the furniture/appliance level.  Wireless technology is a line of sight transmission. The signal will not change direction to go through a doorway or open area seeking the path of least resistance.  It will try to go directly from point A to B attempting to penetrate any material in its path.  Many consumers that I speak to have either the problem where the router can not be conveniently located in a central area or they have building materials in their home that attenuate the transmission.   There are many solutions available at the retail level as this problem is growing more popular.  There are replacement routers that boast a larger range.  There is the  new ‘N’ wireless technology that has a wider range of coverage.  Yes, they do have a larger range, but yes they are still affected by the same physical obstructions that you may have.  There are signal repeaters called range expanders where you place the new box within your area of decent coverage and plug it into a wall outlet and it will forward the signal further.  This actually works in many cases, but there is no real way to tell if it is working or monitor its quality of signal so there is a question of reliability.  There are even devices that will send the signal over your power lines from one room to another which I haven’t really seen a good working model.  There are so many variables as far as age of household wiring, interference, junction boxes that degrade signal, even separate breaker panels within one home.  You could either continue to make trips to the electronics store making exchanges or just face the fact that a wire needs to be run.  Look to commercial installations for an example.  If they need to cover an indoor area they do not use a wireless router with a huge antenna on it.  They use what is called an access point.  An access point simply has one connection for a wire that connects to your router.  You can configure it to have the same name and security information as your router and it expands your coverage.  It is similar to a range expander as it needs to be plugged into power, but it is more reliable because there is a physical connection to the network.  Also, you can place this new bubble of connectivity as far as you can run a wire.  An out building for example.  Get help on this one, but you can bury a outdoor rated network wire out to your workshop, shed, gazebo, boat house, whatever as long as it has a power source.  So my recommendation would be to get a good Linksys router maybe with expanded range or the new ‘N’ technology and try it out.  If the signal does not reach where you want it to go and you can’t move the router then skip right to the access point.  It usually costs the same as the hoaky alternatives, but run a wire instead of the labor of traveling to and from the store.

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