Forget Pringles Cans, These Gizmos Improve Wi-Fi Trouble Spots

The hottest technology in personal computing is wireless networking, which allows users to share a high-speed Internet connection among multiple computers without being tethered to wires or wall jacks. Known as Wi-Fi, this wireless system is commonly used to connect computers in various rooms of a home, but it’s also popping up in public places like airports, hotel lobbies and coffee shops.

But there’s a problem with Wi-Fi: In most homes, the wireless Internet signal doesn’t extend to rooms far from the base station, or access point, which transmits the Internet signal. Even if the signal gets to a distant room, it can be weak or fade in and out, making for a slow and unreliable connection.

Unfortunately, there are few simple, ready-made solutions for these reception problems. If you’re a techie or a do-it-yourselfer, you can go online and learn how to rig up more-powerful antennas, using such things as surplus Russian military gear and even empty cans from Pringles potato chips. But it’s complicated.

One maker of Wi-Fi gear, Linksys, has just introduced a special component that boosts the wireless signal, but it works only if you have certain Linksys base-station models.

So, I’m happy to report on a new product I’ve been testing that easily and inexpensively extends any wireless network, of any brand, into distant rooms in your house, with almost no effort and no technical skills required. It’s one of those things that’s actually easier to use than it is to describe.

The product is really two small gizmos that work in conjunction with one another. They’re called the SpeedStream Powerline Wireless Access Point and the SpeedStream Powerline Ethernet Adapter. They’re small boxes with electrical prongs that you plug into standard wall outlets.

These SpeedStream Powerline products are made by a company called Efficient Networks, owned by German conglomerate Siemens. The Powerline Wireless Access Point costs $99 and the Powerline Ethernet Adapter costs $89.

Here’s a simple description of how they work. More information is available at www.speedstream.com.

Essentially, the first device transports the Internet connection over your home’s electrical wiring from a wall outlet near your DSL or cable modem to an outlet in the distant room where wireless reception is poor. The second device, located in that distant room, takes the connection from the outlet and broadcasts it wirelessly via a built-in transmitter. The signal is strong because the transmitter is right in the room.

Installation is simple. You just plug the Powerline Ethernet Adapter into the electrical wall outlet near your cable or DSL modem, then connect the adapter, via a common Ethernet networking cable, to an empty network connector on the back of your modem or to an empty connector on a secondary box called a router, which may already be attached to the modem. (If you don’t have multiple jacks on your cable or DSL modem and don’t already have a router, you’ll have to buy a router to make this work.)

Next, you go to the room in your house where the wireless Internet signal is weak and plug in the other gadget, the Powerline Wireless Access Point. No cables are required for this one. It will immediately start broadcasting a strong Wi-Fi Internet signal. Lastly, you take a laptop into the distant room and, using its normal Wi-Fi software, configure it to use the new Wi-Fi network called SpeedStream. This network co-exists peacefully with your main Wi-Fi network. That’s all there is to it.

Put simply, the SpeedStream gadgets create a parallel, wired network in your home using the electrical wiring, and then turn it into a wireless network. The SpeedStream products are really meant for building a so-called Powerline network, which is a wired competitor to Wi-Fi wireless networks. But Powerline networks have struggled to gain acceptance in the face of Wi-Fi’s popularity, so Siemens has cleverly merged the two types of networks by building a Wi-Fi transmitter onto a Powerline wall adapter.

In my home, the two SpeedStream gadgets immediately solved my worst Wi-Fi reception problem, which was in a garage that a previous owner had converted into a family room. Because this family room is across the building from my Wi-Fi access point, and because it isn’t structurally part of the main house, I always had a weak, intermittent Wi-Fi signal there. But with the SpeedStream gadgets, that room now has a strong, constant signal.

I did run into one strange problem in my testing. At first, the use of the SpeedStream gadgets slashed the overall speed of my DSL connection drastically. If I unplugged the SpeedStream stuff, the speed bounced back to normal. The company claimed it had never seen this problem in its testing and couldn’t figure out why it was happening. Happily, after a few days, the problem disappeared.

For tinkerers who want to learn how to improve their Wi-Fi reception using a Pringles can, there’s information all over the Web, including at: http://3nw.com/pda/wireless/wi_fi_pringles_can_yagi_antenna.htm.   For everybody else, the Siemens Powerline gear will do the trick.

E-mail me at mossberg@wsj.com.