I just had a friend ask me to put Wi-Fi in their office which is this real long narrow arrangement. So range was a concern.

I went to Comp USA and got referred to a kid that seemed to know about range extending. He mentioned something I haven't heard in this thread yet:

He said that some companies push a certain type of "repeater" set up, but this can greatly reduce your speed...usually cut in half. He even showed me on the Linksys product where it mentioned this.

He said the way to go was with a "extender" set up rather than repeater. He said the cheapest he had was Belkin. Don't know if he was blowing smoke or misinformed, but I went with his recommondation.

The main base station ($79):

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...duct_Id=179477

And the unit for the Range Extension ($39 via their web store pick-up...it was marked $69 in the store. Go figure. I quickly went online out in my car and went back in and purchased it for $39):

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...duct_Id=136486

(the photo in that link on Belkin's web site is wrong and the extension unit is actually smaller)

Anyway I set up only the main base station first. Sure enough, the signal strength dropped all the way to zero at the back end of the property. I then did the quick set up linking the main and extension units and placed the extension unit further back but still within range of the main...and presto-chango! It's great strength all the way now. And full speeds being clocked throughout. Sucker works like a champ.

Anyway, I mention this as this guy pointed out (and Linksys apparently confirms right on their web site and manuals) that some methods of extending your range might result in a 50% loss of speed. Again...I'm going by what some guy in a CompUSA told me.

Also adding that the above set-up I installed is stritcly for internet Wi-Fi only. They are not being used to network different compters to each other.