If you live or work in a large or old building, you're no stranger to the limitations of wireless coverage. One router in a well-chosen location can broadcast a signal just about everywhere, but distance or interference can get in the way of that signal. Even worse, you may not be able to improve your situation through adding a second wireless access point or moving the router to a central location. Maybe you're renting a building and you can't run more wiring through the walls, or maybe your cable modem has to live on one end of your house, leaving the other far away from your wireless signal.

That's where a wireless repeater can come in handy. These gadgets, which can be placed basically anywhere there's an outlet, catch a wireless signal and then rebroadcast it, helping to strengthen the signal from a router on the first floor of a three-story house or on the opposite side of a building. Their convenience isn't without its downsides: they can be difficult to configure, and they can also drag down your network's performance. In this post, we'll make some recommendations to address the former issue, and we'll do some benchmarks to demonstrate when wireless repeaters do and don't make sense.

An introduction to wireless repeaters

Plenty of products are purpose-built to be repeaters, but I tend to shy away from these both because of their price (often equal to or greater than that of standalone routers themselves) and because they lack versatility—if you ever move, purchase a better router, or do something else that obviates the need for a repeater, you're stuck with a device that can only do one thing.

For those reasons, I prefer to use routers that can also be configured as repeaters. Some higher-end routers include this functionality already, but you can easily install third-party firmware like DD-WRT on a cheap router to give it the ability to act as a repeater as well—just check their list of supported devices and read the installation instructions before you buy. Personally, I've purchased several refurbished Cisco Linksys E1000 routers for about $20 apiece and converted them into reliable repeaters without problems.

5GHz vs. 2.4GHz: It's about frequency, not speed For the uninitiated: Routers that use the 2.4 GHz frequency are subject to interference from other electronics, including but not limited to microwaves, cordless phones, and other routers. The 5GHz frequency band is desirable because there's less traffic there, reducing the possibility of interference, but both the router and your devices must support it. Most 5GHz routers also support the 2.4GHz band for wider compatibility.

There are also shortcomings to that approach, however. For the vast majority of the population that isn't comfortable with the idea of hacking into their router and following a convoluted series of instructions to upgrade the firmware, it's a process that can easily lead to a useless, bricked piece of hardware. For those people, I might recommend the recently released Securifi Almond touchscreen router, which we'll be using for our benchmarking later on (full disclosure: Securifi sent Ars a unit for review).

As we mentioned in a previous article, the Almond's specifications aren't going to break records, especially at its list price of $79: it has two 100 megabit Ethernet ports and 2.4GHz single-band 802.11n wireless, where some routers can offer both gigabit Ethernet and simultaneous 2.4 and 5 GHz WiFi. The Almond also lacks support for IPv6, a feature not in wide use currently but one that is becoming increasingly important (Securifi told me that IPv6 and a few other features and bug fixes will be included in a firmware update next month).

For that price, if you're looking for raw speed, you have a number of better options: the Cisco Linksys E3200 offers simultaneous dual-band wireless, gigabit Ethernet, and DD-WRT compatibility for $80, and if you're willing to buy manufacturer refurbished units, you can pick up the slightly older (but similarly specced) E3000 or Netgear's WNDR3700 for $65 and $60, respectively. All are stronger routers than the Almond, making the touchscreen router a tough sell if you aren't scared of a Web interface.

What the Almond does do is put wireless repeating capabilities fully within reach of basically anyone who has ever connected to a wireless network before. Most of its basic configuration—including wireless repeater setup—is handled via its Metro-esque touchscreen, so configuring it as a repeater is a far cry from the multi-step nightmare that DD-WRT would be for a normal person.

Limitations of repeaters and other considerations

Using a router as a repeater is a great way to extend wireless range without investing too much of your money or time, but there are a few technical issues you should be aware of.

When your router is working as a wireless repeater, it’s using half of its internal antennae to receive a wireless signal and the other half to transmit a new signal, effectively halving the potential speed of a given device’s network connection. In many cases, you won’t really notice the difference when simply browsing the Internet (though this will depend on the speed of your Internet connection), but file transfer speed will definitely suffer, as we'll see.

When deciding where to place both your router and your repeater, it's important to put them both in a central location, and not to keep the repeater too far away from the main router—if you put the repeater on the very edge of your main network hoping to strengthen the signal to your devices, you're going to reduce the speed of your connection to the rest of the network and to the Internet. You also want to try not to daisy chain repeaters—while it's completely possible to have a second repeater repeating the signal of your first repeater (phew), it compounds the performance issues—if you've got so much space to cover that you need multiple repeaters, set your router up in a central location and connect the repeaters directly to it rather than each other.

Setting up the Almond

When you first power on the Almond, it will ask you whether you’d like to use it as a standard router or a wireless repeater, here called a "range extender."

When you opt to use it as a repeater, the wizard will show you a list of all wireless networks in range—select one and type in its password. While the Almond’s screen does respond to fingers, the stylus stored on the bottom of the router is a better fit for its tiny onscreen keyboard.

If you’ve typed your key correctly, the Almond will create a new wireless network called <your SSID>_almond using the same password as the main router. Connect devices to the repeater’s SSID, and congratulations—you’ve successfully configured your wireless repeater.

The end result is the same whether you’re using the $80 Almond or a $20 router flashed with DD-WRT, but compare the latter’s repeater bridge directions to the screenshots here and you’ll see why the Almond could be very appealing to the less technically inclined.

Benchmarks

Our main test machine was a Dell Latitude E6410 laptop with gigabit Ethernet and an Intel 6300 802.11n adapter. We tested six different scenarios, selected to show Internet and file transfer speeds under a wide variety of conditions, and to demonstrate the speed of a wireless repeater relative to a standard wireless network:

The laptop connected directly to the main router via gigabit Ethernet.

The laptop connected to the main router via a 5GHz connection. The laptop was positioned about ten feet from the router, with no obstructions between them.

The laptop connected to the main router via a 2.4GHz connection. The laptop’s position is the same as in the 5GHz test. This is the speed of the Almond when used as a standard router.

The laptop connected to the Almond repeater via 100 megabit Ethernet, the maximum supported by the Almond.

The laptop connected to the Almond repeater via a 2.4GHz connection. The laptop was placed about ten feet from the Almond, and the Almond was placed about 25 feet from the main router, with no obstructions between them.

The same test as above, but with the Almond placed about 40 feet away and behind a closed door, to create some interference.

To test Internet download speed, upload speed, and latency, we used Speedtest.net, running the test three times and averaging the results. All tests were done within about 20 minutes to reduce the likelihood that changes in the ISP’s network load would skew the results. To test file transfer speed, we moved one 998MB file from the laptop’s desktop to a file server connected to the network via gigabit Ethernet.

The Internet speed tests show that for many Internet connections, the Almond (or whatever repeater you use) will prove more than fast enough. You can see that the upload speeds remained about the same regardless of how my laptop was connected to the network—for people with 10Mbps or maybe even 15Mbps Internet connections, having a repeater won’t slow your Internet access down much.

You do begin to run into bottlenecks as your Internet speeds increase, and as you introduce obstructions between the routers. For my own 50Mbps download speeds, the Almond shaves a few Mbps off of the top even when I was connected with a wire, and speeds fall off pretty quickly after that—you’re really feeling the effects of the halved bandwidth in the wireless tests.

Transferring files is a much different story, since file transfers will typically soak up any and all bandwidth you have to give them. Even a good 5GHz 802.11n connection pales in comparison to gigabit Ethernet, and the best possible speed you’ll get out of your repeater is still about half of what you’ll get from a direct wireless connection. Where you really see the effect is in the "real-world" test—just by moving the repeater a few feet and putting it behind a closed door, you more than halve your speed.

Conclusions: Trading coverage for speed

A well-placed wireless repeater is a great way to get a WiFi signal into every nook and cranny of your home or small business without the extra work or expenditure of running cables through the walls of a building, but that convenience isn't without its costs. Most Internet users, especially lighter users with slower connections, won't notice the bandwidth that is lost by rebroadcasting a wireless signal, but for performance-intensive tasks like file transferring or streaming over the local network, that extra signal is going to cost you quite a bit of performance.

As for what you should use to expand your network: techies and intrepid DIYers with a spare weekend can save some cash and go with DD-WRT, which can add much more to a router than just the ability to rebroadcast a wireless signal. For everyone else, though, the Almond is an excellent solution—the touchscreen drives up the price for what is otherwise a rather entry-level router, but it easily achieves its stated goal of simplifying networking setup.