Extending a wifi network with a TP-Link RE650

I had a very unusual setup for the network for my office. The office is situated a floor above and at the opposite end of the house to where the main router is located. A fully wired connection is not an option at the moment due to concrete floors and limited access to roof voids.

Previously this meant using a wireless extender into the room above the router and then using HomePlugs to connect to the office. I could then use a wired connection from on HomePlug into a router in the office. This worked but was far from optimal. I would get about 40Mbps. It would also occasionally suffer from slowness.

Recently my laptop would go to sleep and then the network would connect but it couldn’t talk to the Internet. After a bit of research I finally tracked it down to the extender setting itself as the default gateway for some reason. The only way to get out of this was to power it off and on again and then the laptop would pick up the correct gateway.

As the extender was quite old, I did a bit of research and decided to replace it with a newer model. I purchased a TP-Link RE650 Wi-Fi Range Extender.

Installation was painless. I removed the HomePlugs and placed the extender directly in the office. Remarkably I am now getting about 170 Mbps. It is early days but it looks like a good purchase so far.