Using phone lines to extend Wi-Fi range

[Steve]

Getting a crappy Wi-Fi signal somewhere? The usual ways of boosting the signal include buying high-gain antennas, extra access points, or making cantennas (hats off to the mighty Pringles can!) One company is taking a different approach, using copper phone lines like giant antennas, thus extending the range of the signal.

"It is strictly RF [radio frequency], physical layer. We just do the frequency shift. It's like an extension of the antenna... the copper is the medium that the shifted signal flies on. On the other end, we reverse the process," says Harnack. In the room where there was no coverage before, the WirePlus receiver shoots out the Wi-Fi signal as strongly as if the AP were in the room.

There are some products using power lines on the market that also extend Wi-Fi range, but they all involve actual 802.11 chips in some way, making the products nodes on the network. That's not the case here. There are no Wi-Fi chips, not even any routing of packets.

[WiFi planet]

[DragonStar]

I imagine it works much in the same way as mobile phones use the handsfree headset as an antenae for the radio

[davidstone28]

It's potentially a good innovation, although I think there's a similar gadget on the market which uses mains wiring to transmit signals from the router to APs in each room. The APs simply plug into the mains socket in each room and are about the size of a square multiplug. Can't remember the name of it though.