By Ki Grinsing

Netgear WN3000Rp universal wireless range extender helps you eliminating dead spots, plug and play and easy to install.

Overview

Click for spec details

Wireless devices are getting smaller and portable today and yet powerful. New generation of wireless routers today are designed with new wireless technology, higher speed and longer distance coverage. Wireless routers in high performance category offer high speed up to 450Mbps and solid connection for large home with the backyard.

Extending the range

Users with standard wireless routers in home frequently experience wireless coverage limitation, dead spots in farthest corner of the house. Many people replace their aging router with new ones and some people add wireless range extender to double the distance of range coverage. The advantage of adding range extender device is that you don’t need to change the existing running network, you just need to add one to cover the dead zones area. There are various models of wireless range extender available in the market, for example D-link with it’s Dap-1360 wireless n300 range extender or Netgear with it’s Wn2000Rpt and Wn3000Rp. See also Dap-1360 Vs Wn2000Rpt.

Netgear WN3000RP – What Does It Do?

Netgear WN3000RP is a universal wireless range extender, works with any types of wireless routers or wireless gateway. This device is small, compact and looks elegant with two external antennas that add adorable appearance. The design of the body is directly plugged into the power outlet on the wall of the room where you want wifi range.

Main features

• Based on wireless N standard (802.11b/g/n)
• Wall plug design – eliminating the clutter of power cable
• CD-less installation with WPS support for secure connection
• WEP/WPA/WPA2 wireless security encryption

Wall-plug design with dynamic LED

WN3000RP with wall plug design is very convenient in placing the device away from your table – eliminating the clutter of the power cable. Apple airport express (latest generation) is also a wall-plug-design wireless base station.

Traditional wireless range extender without link indicator cannot help you where the best placement of the extender. You might place it in area where the extender itself cannot receive the signal from the router or the gateway. WN3000RP with dynamic LED indicator helps you to place the device in the best place between the router and the area where you need to extend the coverage.

Wireless extender or client

One thing you need to note is that WN300RP can operate either as the wireless extender or a wireless client. You cannot connect the Ethernet port of the extender to the router to work as the wireless AP. The available one Ethernet port is used to connect to any Ethernet-based device as the wireless client for your Wifi network. Should you require connecting up to four Ethernet-based devices, you may use WN200Rpt which includes four Ethernet ports. But Wn2000Rpt is not wall-plug design device; you need to place it on the table.

Setup is easy with WPS

Setting-up is easy. Both Wn2000rpt and Wn3000Rp include WPS button for easy installation in two steps. Push the Push ‘N’ Connect button on the router (router with WPS enable) and push the Push ‘N’ Connect button on your extender. Life is easier with WPS feature. You will always be able to change the setup after installation by accessing the extender from your PC and type the http://www.mywifiext.net.

Connection Diagram

Figure 1 is common networking diagram of wireless range extender. Remember that your wireless clients such as iPad and other tablet computers outside your Wi-Fi network (in dead zones) can connect to your extender.

To cover larger area, you may consider high power repeater such as Amped SR10000. This is high power 600mW smart repeater to extend your existing range up to 10,000 square feet.

Belkin N300 DB Range extender

If you like the wallplug design of the WN3000RP by Netgear, you’ll love the nice wallplug design Belkin offers (Part # F9K1111). The oval design is very smooth and looks nice, no sharp edges like other wireless range extenders ever made before. We see that mostly new models of latest generation of Belkin routers have been designed with good-looking models, oval and no sharp edges. Well, that’s about the good looking side of the device.

Dual band N300

The good thing with this Belkin range extender is that you can extend your dual band network simultaneously with the speeds of 150Mbps each band, good for extending your network to let your mobile devices roaming around your large home.

Unlike WN3000RP which includes one Fast Ethernet port, this Belkin range extender includes one Gigabit Ethernet port – auto-sensing port no matter what types of UTP cable you use, cross or straight through no problem.