Wi-Fi booster / repeater?

[CuriousMike]

I plugged my cable modem into my wifi router, the password is 'password'
That is the extent of my setup knowledge.

My daughter just landed in France yesterday as a study abroad student for a year.

The house she's in has wifi on the first floor, she's on the 3rd floor.

The connection is troublesome and I'm not sure how to help.

Has anyone used a wifi booster / repeater? Do these things exists, do they help?
Are they easy to setup? Are they cheap?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I plugged my cable modem into my wifi router, the password is 'password'
That is the extent of my setup knowledge.

My daughter just landed in France yesterday as a study abroad student for a year.

The house she's in has wifi on the first floor, she's on the 3rd floor.

The connection is troublesome and I'm not sure how to help.

Has anyone used a wifi booster / repeater? Do these things exists, do they help?
Are they easy to setup? Are they cheap?

The problem is, a wifi repeater, ideally, has to be located half-way between the source router, and the destination client wifi. It does no good to be located where the client wifi is located.

Edit: What I think that you need, is a more powerful wifi client adapter. Look for a "PremierTek Hermes" adapter. It's 1W.

 

[razel]

A WiFi booster repeater will not help if the signal is very weak for a solid connection or non-existent. In fact if it's weak and not setup properly (repeater is set to a channel that overlaps the 1st router) it will not work at all since it will interfere with your 1st floor router.

What you can do....

The shape of a WiFi signal is a doughnut. Right above and below a vertical antenna is the weakest signal. Try elevating the router or changing it's orientation. Also since it's on the 1st floor, use aluminum foil to reflect the signal. For kicks put some below the router and where she is put foil above the device.

Otherwise, you must run a LAN cable up there, which I doubt you'll want to do which leaves you with powerline networking. That will get you a LAN cable to the 3rd. If she still wants WiFi then you run another WiFi to that. At that point, you'll need to a nerd's help.

 

[CuriousMike]

Thanks to both of you for your suggestions!