Amped Wireless High Power Wireless-N 600mW Gigabit Dual Band Range Extender (Repeater) SR20000G

Amped Wireless' High Power Wireless-N 600mW Gigabit Dual Band Repeater offers excellent extension of a wireless network to "dead spots" that a router can't cover. At $169.99 (MSRP), it's not cheap, especially when compared with other extenders on the market, such as Netgear's Universal WiFi Range Extender WN2000RPT (about $60, street) or the Cisco Linksys Wireless-N Range/Extender Bridge RE1000 ?($50-$80, street). However, unlike Netgear's extender, the SR20000G is simple to set up and has advanced capabilities. It's a dual-band extender whereas the Cisco Linksys RE1000 and BearExtender's PC Long Range 802.11n USB WiFi Booster, both only extend 2.4 GHz signals.

Amped Wireless' repeater is a well-engineered networking device that provides great coverage without any hassle in those wireless dead zones.

Specs
The SR20000G can operate horizontally or vertically and is wall-mountable. Design wise, it's almost identical to Amped Wireless' High Power Gigabit Dual Band Router. The SR20000G has five Gigabit Ethernet ports, so you can also use it as a bridge to connect wired devices such as consoles, multimedia players and other devices, to your network.

Equipped with dual 600mW amplifiers for each radio band, the SR20000G also ships with two external 5dBi high gain antennas. The repeaters support up to 300 Mbps on both bands. Inside, is a 620 MHz processor. The device is compatible with Wi-Fi networks secured with WEP, WPA, WPA2, or WPS since it supports all of those standards. There's also a single USB 2.0 port for sharing data on USB storage drives.

Setup
You'll want to place the repeater mid-way between where you can get a strong signal from your router and a dead zone. You don't have to pick the perfect spot to start with: You can set up the repeater close to the router initially, and then move it to the desired locations, without losing any configuration settings. Most repeaters work best in line-of-sight with the routers. However, I had two walls in between the router and the SR20000G, and still got a strong repeated signal.

As soon as the repeater is fired up you can see two new SSIDs: Amped_Rep_2.4 GHz and Amped_Rep_5.0 GHz. Connect to either of those SSIDs and you can access the repeater's management interface. The interface opens to the Smart Setup Wizard, which walks through setting up the repeater.? First you scan for the network you want to repeat/extend. Select the network from the results, one for 2.4 GHz and one for 5 GHz.? You can only choose networks that are transmitting at minimum 70 percent signal strength. The wizard lists the signal strength of all wireless networks in proximity as well as their encryption level and the channel each network uses.

If the network you want to extend is encrypted, you have to enter the security key in the next step to setup the repeater. You can leave the default name of the extended network (the SSID with _Rep_5.0 Ghz 0r Rep_2.4 Ghz added,) or you can create your own names/SSID for the extended network.?

Besides a lengthy reboot (which takes 160 seconds), there isn't more to set up. Afterwards you can disconnect the repeater and move it to where you want to operate it without fear of losing your settings.

Features
There are also extra features within the interface for further configuration.? You can set up USB storage, guest networking, and even user access control all through the repeater. Devices can be allowed or denied access to the repeater by entering that device's MAC address. I also like the fact you can tweak wireless settings, such as changing the channel or channel width of the 5 GHz band independent from the router's settings?or you can just copy the settings from the router (which is probably best practice).? You can also get very granular with configuration by enabling features like TX beamforming and WAN portioning, among others.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/vwdDqscGxSY/0,2817,2407154,00.asp

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