Question

Quick question regarding WiFi routers. I’m currently a student living in an annexe and have free WiFi on my monthly contract. The WiFi runs off of a TP Link extender from the main house. My question is: is it possible to plug a standard WiFi router into my extender and set it up on as a new connection? A few notes: I won’t have access to the main router in the house that my extender is connected to, and I don’t want to spend any money on another contract because it will be too much hassle for what it’s worth. As I have a few WiFi devices connected, I’m hoping this might help speed things up.  

Answer 1

Who’s your service provider?  

Comments

Well probably who you have your cable setup through is the same provider, I would assume?  

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@schatz do you have the ability to hardwire using Ethernet cable? These networks have limited accessibility to modify in my experience (without spending money)

Answer 2

Yes you should be able to but it won't be any faster

Comments

@schatz if your extender is getting bogged down by the number of devices, yes. But it's more likely that the link between your extender and the main router is going to be the bottleneck

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Cool. Hope it helps. If that doesn't work and you somehow manage to get access to the router in the main house, I'd consider putting an Orbi router in there attached to the main router with the satellite in your place. That'd give you pretty much as fast a connection as those in the main house. The main house is complete unaffected except for using another power outlet and ethernet port on the router. You get 4 ethernet ports in your room. It'll be double NAT so you won't have access to their network and they won't have access to yours

Answer 3

Your typical wifi extender is actually a booster/repeater that is going to make it's clients lose half the available bandwidth right off the bat if having to use its wifi radio to communicate to both the main router and the extender's clients. Best would be if the extender is actually wired to the network in some way. Either over Cat5E/6, coax (moca), or powerline adapters. If it must be wireless then it should have a dedicated backhaul radio.  

Answer 4

If you have multiple client devices that will also be communicating with each other directly then having your own access point or switch should improve performance for that

Answer 5

Yes just set it to pass through