Even though you may succeed in making your router transmit a stronger signal that reaches further, there is no guarantee that the signals returned by your wireless clients-computers, smartphones, and so on-will be able to reach the router. You May Sabotage Yourselfįor a wireless connection to work well, both sides of the connection need to be able to reach each other. Extending your signal further will therefore contribute to even more interference for your neighbors. However, the frequency band with the longest reaching signals (2.4 GHz) is also the band with the most interference / wireless 'noise'. You Will Sabotage Your Neighborsīy boosting the Wi-Fi signal, you can extend its reach, which sounds like a good thing. The repeater/extender simply repeats the signal from the router to create a new network that extends wireless coverage.

Note that while Wi-Fi extenders or repeaters are sometimes referred to as Wi-Fi 'amplifiers', there is no actual amplification of signal strength involved. Extending the antenna by using a soda or Pringles can or similar.Typical examples of hacks that may cause this are: (You can also run into problems if importing equipment from abroad yourself, for similar reasons.)Īny solution causing the transmission strength limit to be exceeded, would then be illegal. Fiddling with this yourself will then quickly take you over the legal limit. This means that the equipment you can buy will usually already be using the maximum permitted transmission strength under the law. (See Fribruksforskriften).Īny wireless device sold in a country with such laws must be approved in accordance with the local legislation.

Local laws in for example Norway clearly specify both what frequencies and which signal transmission strengths are allowed for indoor and outdoor wireless networks.

Actually amplifying your router or extender's wireless signal to extend its reach runs the risk of being illegal in many countries.

Wifi extenders signal booster