Do you complain about the places at your home where your network comes to a halt because that place is outside your router’s range? Rather than complaining about it, you can turn an old router into an extender that squeaks the Wi-Fi data signal out of thin air and retransmits it. It’s easy to reconfigure an old router into an extender so that the device grabs a strong Wi-Fi signal and sends out a fresh stream of data to previously unconnected areas. At the same time, it costs next to nothing to do this, so this will not be a perfect solution. Do not expect Wi-Fi miracles, but it can at least save you from spending a penny more for your setup. It’s a good way to give you better wireless performance than a simple extender and to inexpensively fill your home with wireless data.
Steps to extend Wi-Fi for free –
– Move your router.
– Analyze your Wi-Fi network.
– Update your router’s firmware.
– Switch the router frequencies.
The general process for the routers is quite similar, but not exactly the same. If you have an old router, you can check it’s manual whether or not it can be converted into an extender and get specific instructions.
Use wireless repeater mode of your router.
Check the settings and see if there is some kind of “wireless display,” extender,” or “bridge mode.” (Wireless bridge means connecting two routers together over Wi-Fi without allowing any other wireless clients to connect). This setup replaces the Ethernet cable -the one connecting the new router and old router- with a wireless signal. This setup comes with one caveat. If you run an old router as an extender, you are going to cut down your performances in half for the connected devices.
This happens because the transmitter in the second router has to work two times. It first has to receive the signal from the primary router and then retransmit the signal to the wireless clients. Hence it is always imperative to use an Ethernet connection(where possible). Using a wireless bridge or repeater is no doubt more convenient, but the only downside is that if the secondary router retransmits the wireless signal, the wireless throughout in the secondary building will be cut in half. Those connected to the second router will not be able to enjoy the same performance as the clients connected to the first router.
If your router is not an extender, then make it one.
If your router does not support running as an extender, there is no need to worry as there is another way out. You just need to check that your router can use Open source firmware, and if it can, then the chances of using your old router as an extender indeed increase. The only thing you need to be careful of is that the routers with lower maximum bandwidth might not work well because they can create bottlenecks in your network.
To make your router and extender, you will have to flash a third-party firmware. You need to put some efforts to see which firmware works with your router. It is essential to find the right firmware with the accurate version of that firmware. If you use incorrect firmware, then you would have to suffer through a world of issues that might take a lot of your time to get fixed. You can check support for your exact router on:- DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Tomato
A new access point
Access points are used for extending the wireless coverage of an existing network and for increasing the number of users that can connect to it.
The best thing you can do to change the router into an extender is to convert it into a simple wireless access point. For this, connect your old router to a new one and connect a device to your old router. In the settings of your old router, look around for some “access point mode.”
This step will change the IP address that you use to access the router’s settings. Reset your router and switch the Ethernet cable from it’s Wan port to one of it’s LAN ports. Now to see the new ip address of the old router, pull up your newer router’s configuration, and look for the section where your router lists connected devices. If you can remember your IP address, then you can set your router’s IP address manually on its configuration screen.
Place your router in a perfect place. Consider using different SSID’s for your old and new networks so that you can have more manual control over how your various devices connect.