Hi folks! My wife and I just moved into a bigger home in preparation for our baby boy that's due July 3rd. We finally got the cable turned on, along with cable internet. Right now we have cable TV in the living room and master bedroom. The tech hooked the cable modem up in another bedroom at the other end of the house because that was where an available cable hookup was. Here's our problem... We have a wireless router that we've had for a while hooked up to the cable modem. It's broadcasting, but because of the size of the house and number of walls, the signal isn't reaching the room where our laptops are. I've tried moving the cable modem to one of the other cable hookups by unplugging the cable box and plugging in the modem. Unfortunately, the modem does not initialize or whatever. It will only pick up the internet from the cable in the one room. This is different from our old house where we could move the modem anywhere. I'm seeing two problems here. One is that the modem won't initialize anywhere other than the one room, and two, that the router's signal won't reach from that room. Does anyone have a potential solution for this problem, and no, we can't move our computers. The router is about 3 years old or so. Are there ones now with stronger signals or larger broadcast ranges? Am I just an idiot and not doing something right when moving the cable modem to another hookup? I feel like this should have been an easy fix by just moving the blasted thing, but it's not working. Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks, Matt
Sounds like there are filters on the other cable connections. General Networking/Lan/Wan: Cable Internet Filter, cable modem line, cable internet providers
Not sure but I would not look at age/strength of router as a problem. Mine is 5 years old and I get a signal in the parking lot (from the 3rd floor condo).
Maybe a WLAN repeater might be the easiest and cleanest solution. I found a few for about $26 by just googling "WLAN repeater". Also, it may turn ugly, but running CAT5 cable from the cable modem to a location where the wireless router better reaches your laptops might be another solution. Imalcom made a good point about potential cable filters, but are you sure they are connected at all? My previous home had most of them disconnected for some reason, and I had to completely redo the wiring. That would cost plenty of your time, though, if it is the case. Lastly, and this would be the costliest method in terms of dollars, but the new 802.11n wireless standard claims to boost the range of wireless routers by up to 100ft indoors. Your experience may vary, and you would have to not only replace the router but get PCMCIA cards for your laptops too. This may work, but it would be the more expensive experiment. I would suggest just buying a repeater; probably the cheapest route to go and will save you the time of troubleshooting your cable connections. Good luck!
I think you should be able to move your modem into the other room. Did you try calling your cable company about this? A lot of people don't know this, but the Apple Airport Express can also act as a wireless bidge with another airport to extend your range. It is already wireless N also. Apple - AirPort Express - Features - Internet Sharing
We had precisely this issue 3 days ago, moving into a new house. Found this site very helpful: both the short intro essay and advice, and the links. It was Aiorport Express that worked for us. wireless network signal booster, wireless router booster antenna
