need wifi help

Looking for some help from those who have used wifi connections in various rv parks.

Just bought a new laptop with an Intel 5300 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N wireless network adapter (various reviews suggest it's a decent adapter).

Intel specs suggest that the wifi adapter has signal range of 91 meters indoors and 366 meters outdoors (i suspect these are ideal conditions)

I purchased a wifi repeater (but sent it back) and I am now considering purchasing a more powerful repeater kit which includes an 8.5 dBi omnidirectional antenna (advertised range is up to 1/2 mile)

I don't know much about wifi but what I understand so far is - the further away I am with my laptop the lower the signal strength - and using a repeater increases signal strength but reduces bandwidth by as much as 50%)

Before I order this other repeater, if anyone in the forum understands how this stuff works (or uses a wifi repeater) my question is this:

Am I better off with a weaker signal and higher bandwidth?
or,
A stronger signal and reduced bandwidth?

Any help would be appreciated.

I have in the past only used the on board adapter in our laptop. As long as I have 2 bars on my indicator I don't have any issues. IMHO I'd keep the weaker signal so long as you are not getting to many drop outs. Your connections will vary from park to park depending on how much they put into their networks. I'd start with what you have and upgrade only if you have issues. Often open WiFi networks can be slower anyway just due to traffic.

Thats my 2 cents

This campground has free WiFi, and they recently upgraded it. It works fine with the internal card in my laptop. What slows it down are websites with a ton of pop-up ads/pictures, e-mails with large attachments, or heavy usage. Usually, I don't have any trouble on this site, but some others I've gone and made a sandwich while the screens changed.

If you plan on watching internet movies (netflix, ect.) you want wide bandwidth. If just internet browsing it does not matter as much. One thing to remember is that wi-fi signals are "line of sight" signals and every wall, tree or camper it has to go through will cut a portion of the signal.
Generally speaking any new laptop is quite a bit faster and better set up for wi-fi than a laptop 8 months old.
If you have a smartphone, most new palm or blackberry phones can lock onto a wi-fi signal and be used as a modem, or used as a modem on there own signal as network speeds are getting faster all of the time.

thanks for the feedback everyone


@trvlrerik - while browsing I like to watch videos on news sites like cnn etc.

Not sure how much bandwidth a typical rv resort puts out on their wifi hotspot and not sure how much bandwidth is required to watch news videos but if a repeater reduces bandwidth by 50% would I still have enough to watch cnn?

I know that distance from the hotspot reduces signal range but is the bandwidth also reduced the further you are away as well - or is signal strength and bandwidth both the same thing?

After some extensive searching - link after link after link (don't ask me how I got here LOL) I found this link:

http://www.whibb.com/youtube-bandwidth-requirement.html

This site talks about bandwidth needed to watch youtube videos which I would assume are similar to news videos on sites like cnn etc. The article says that Category D: 257Kbps - 384Kbps is the threshold. In other words, available bandwidth below this amount would require the video to buffer several times while bandwidth above that should allow for a steady stream.

I also found that a wifi adapter with 802.11g capability has max transfer rate of 54 Mbps.

If I used a repeater and lost 50% of the max bandwidth transfer rate- that would leave me with approx 27 Mbps - which would suggest more than enough to watch videos.

My only problem now is - I don't know if this means the repeater will reduce the adapter capability by 50% or the hotspot's bandwidth by 50%

In all my searching I cannot find anywhere what the average bandwidth output is for an average wifi system in an rv park - so I don't know what to apply the 50% reduction to.

If the rv park puts out 54Mbps bandwidth then the repeater reduction should pose no problem - if the park puts out 1 Mbps then it could be an issue.

Does anyone have any idea how much bandwidth the typical rv park hotspot puts out?

thanks

Bandwidth is proportional to signal strength. The physics are inescapable. That said, you're looking at the wrong end of the horse. The download speeds you will acheive are going to be dependent on the speed and type of internet connection that your park has, and the amount of traffic.

For instance, I'm typing this on a netbook and I'm seated about 20 ft from my wireless router. The signal is about as good as is possible and I'm sure it could acheive the 54 Mbit spec rate. But my actual measured download speed is only about 1.2 Mbits because I have a 1.5 Mbit satellite internet connection to my router.

The only way to know what download speed you will get in any given park is to go there and test it.

Talk to Alex at the 3G Store and he can answer any of your questions and provide pricing on any hardware you may need. I don't have his number handy but I know someone will post it for you. Or just google 3G Store. Call and ask to speak to Alex.

cdnrver said:

... the typical rv park hotspot puts out?

thanks

Click to expand...

That's a loaded question, for sure. Kinda like, which is the best truck...or RV...or cell phone...or...

Like previously mentioned, you'll probably have to just check them out. Plan for the worst - hope for the best!

The icon on my laptop shows the speed to be 54 Mbps. Fortunately, on this seasonal site (mine as long as I want it), I am in line of site with the new taller, repeater tower the owner put up about 100 feet from me. And it's on the same side as my computer desk. The site between it and me cannot handle anything over a pop-up camper.

John,

Yourt a perfect candidate to illustrate my point. Go here and report the results.

Once again thank you to everyone who responded

@JohnDar: Thanks for the information that your speed shows 54 Mbps. You have answered the biggest part of my question.

Not having used wifi before, at least I know now that hotspots are able to put out that kind of signal (it could be more, but 54Mbps is the max transfer rate of a "g" adapter anyways). I also recognize some parks would have lesser quality service.

Knowing that, if I can pull a signal like that a farther distance from the source antenna by using a repeater, then that should outweigh the 50% reduction in bandwidth from the repeater itself.

The suggestion to just go out there and try it and see - the whole purpose in asking these questions was to see if purchasing a repeater was worth the expense rather than spend the money on a repeater only to find that it was a waste of money after going out there and trying it and finding out after the fact that it doesn't help.


Once again thanks for everyone's help - I'm going to order the repeater kit in the morning. It should at least improve my signal at those parks that have decent service.

Not sure how much the repeater and antenna you are looking at goes for, but for around $40, you might try a high powered USB wifi adapter. This is the latest and greatest one according to reviews on youtube, etc - http://rokland.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=336

i don't normally involve myself in "wifi" conversations, but feel i should point out that... the indication that you are connected at 54mb/s is only relevant to your connection to the campground wifi hotspot.

the true bottleneck is likely to be the campground's connection speed to the internet, which is 99.999 % of the time, going to be far less than 54mb/s

what i mean is, what good is a 54mb/s connection to the campground hotspot, if the campground's connection to the internet is a 7mb/s cable connection? or worse, a 1.5mb/s DSL connection?

when connecting to campground wifi, you only need as good a connection that results in the speeds feeding the campground.

i would suspect that even a weak wifi signal to campground wifi will suffice.

an easy way to test if you are getting all that you can get is do a speedtest from RV and compare the results against a speedtest done at the campground office.

my favorite/preferred method to do speed tests is http://speedtest.net

it doesn't matter which speed testing site you use, so long as you use same site for all testing.

@ rl7greg: this is the repeater kit that I'm looking at buying:

http://www.jefatech.com/product/RV-KIT-REPEATER/Long_Range_WiFi_Repeater_Kit_for_RVs.html

@EVDOalex: thanks for the info - my whole concern was the 50% loss in bandwidth when using a repeater vs not using one.

Best case scenario: 54 Mbps / 50% = 27 Mbps
Even at 1.5 Mbps /50% = 750 kbps

750kbps is still decent transfer rate for news videos etc.

So, what I'll do is try my laptop's adapter first when I get to a resort - if the signal is too weak or I'm parked farther away from the source then I'll use the repeater to try and pull the signal in.


Thanks for all the help everyone and drive safe in your travels.

Take care

cdnrver said:

@EVDOalex: thanks for the info - my whole concern was the 50% loss in bandwidth when using a repeater vs not using one.

Best case scenario: 54 Mbps / 50% = 27 Mbps
Even at 1.5 Mbps /50% = 750 kbps

Click to expand...

it doesn't work that way, exactly.

for this example since you are using a repeater, that means the MAX you'll get is 50% of 54mb/s, which is as you said = 27mb/s

lets say that the WiFi signal you have is 50% so in theory, you are now only able to get a maximum of 13.5mb/s

what is feeding the campground's wifi router is DSL at 1.5mb/s

assuming you are the only one using it at the time, you'll get ALL of that 1.5mb/s even with a 50% wifi signal to campground wifi.

heck, even if you had a 10% wifi signal to campground that means max throughput to you is 2.7mb/s right? so you're still able to get the 1.5mb/s thats feeding the campground.

another way to think of it in terms of water gallonage.

if the campground is fed by 50 gallons per hour and your hose to the campground office is capable of 500 gallons per hour. you're still going to get at most, 50 gallons per hour.

hope that make sense?

it sure does - thanks for your help

Ran the Speed Test thing here at the campground. It says I'm running 5.08 Mbps on download and 1.84 Mbps on upload.