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Forum Discussion
mdwilli
Dec 06, 2016Aspirant
Recommendations for Powerline and WiFi Range Extender?
I would like to add a Powerline with a one Port + WiFi (XWNB5221?) to one room which has a desktop computer and a WiFi Range Extender (EX2700?) to another room? I have a N600 WNDR3800 WiFi Router. ...
michaelkenward
Dec 09, 2016Guru - Experienced User
It probably depends on the layout of your rooms. A small apartment is not the same as a huge mansion.
Remember, you will need a decent wifi link between the router and whatever you buy as the Range Extender. It eats the wifi from the router and acts as a go between with any wifi devices that connect to ot. So the best place to put it would be somewhere between the router and the room where you want wifi.
This is not true of the powerline setup. That does not need to see the router's wifi signal. It does everything over the LAN on the powerline. So you can put the access point in the room where you want the wifi.
One thing against the EX2700 is that it does not support the 5G band that you will find in most modern wifi devices. If you want to connect anything like that, I would look for a more modern range extender.
The same applies to some older powerline kit, but the PowerLINE WiFi 1000 does 5G as well as GB LAN.
Speed may not be the most important thing to you, but you wouldn't want to be disappointed when you opened the boxes.
mdwilli
Dec 09, 2016Aspirant
Michael, thank you for the great tutorial!
Does the Powerline 500 + WiFi support 5 GHz band or just 2.4 GHz?
If I end up getting a WiFi extender, it looks like I should be OK with their WN3500RP, EX3700 or EX6100 models? Correct?
Thanks again!
- michaelkenwardDec 09, 2016Guru - Experienced User
mdwilli wrote:Does the Powerline 500 + WiFi support 5 GHz band or just 2.4 GHz?
Just 2.4GHz.
You can home in on what you need on the product pages:
Powerline Networking | Powerline Ethernet | NETGEAR
N300 is the slower wifi.
I am not familiar with the other range extenders. Mine is an old model that sits on a filing cabinet doing nothing. These days I am predominantly powerline.
- mdwilliDec 09, 2016Aspirant
Michael, thanks again for all your support!