Extending Google Wifi

This is another aside, but entirely unrelated.

I live in Mountain View, CA, home to Google. Google provides free wifi internet access and coverage is generally good outside but not reliable inside for most. In my case, I have good connectivity on one side of my house and decided to try an experiment to bring it inside.

This is a posting I sent to the Old Mountain View Yahoo Group about that.

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Several weeks ago, we had a discussion thread that started out about alternatives to DSL or cable. I suggested using Google WiFi with one of the devices out there that bring the signal inside. And here is the update.

I have a somewhat similar problem at our family vacation location, so I decided I wouldn't mind spending a some money to see if I could make things work here and then ship the equipment and reconfigure there.

Several people had sent me email directly saying that they had picked up a Pepwave or Ruckus wifi modem. You cannot buy these directly. When I went in search of places selling them locally, I couldn't find them. Or in the case of Expressnets, no one was in the office, no one answered the phone, no one returned calls and on their website all the wifi modems were listed as Out Of Stock. Plus the prices seemed higher than what I wanted ($150 and up).

Digging around a bit more, I found that Buffalo makes a Converter that is recommended. I picked one up at Frys for about $90 (seen from other sources starting at ~$60). Note that it has to be the Buffalo wifi converter, not a router.

As an aside, I noticed while I was there that there was a Frys.com G router for less than $20. Interesting.

Setting up the converter took about 30 minutes - a little longer than I had hoped. Once I'd figured out the IP address of the converter, I logged into the web interface and it went faster. Connecting through to the internet, Google WiFi does require a login and once I had done that - click the Keep Me Logged In box - through the converter I was pretty much set.

However, this is a wired connection from the computer to the converter (4 ports) and Google WiFi is open (never had any luck with the Secure version).

So I plugged in a small wireless G travel router that I rarely use. Once I'd figured out that it needed to be in router mode, not Access Point mode, all was well and I set security on that.

Connecting directly to the converter, I got 3.4Mb down. In the current position and with the wireless router, it seems to be about 1Mb (the converter says that I get about 40-60% strength to Google wifi directly on that side of the house). And of course the whole house sees the wire router ssid as 100%.

Pros: If you have a reliable, modest strength connection to Google Wifi, a one time investment of ~$150 for the converter and a wireless router, you can have free wireless throughout your house. Not hard to set up if you have similar experience with routers, etc. Connection strength is fine for the basics.

Cons: Not hard technically but perhaps more fiddling than many people would care for. Then you need to find the best position for the converter to maximize the signal from the nearest pole. And of course, a number of people don't seem to get a good signal to begin with. If you want wireless and / or a secure connection, you'll need a router - a bit more fiddling. Connection strength (based on distance from Google WiFi pole) may be too slow for high performance usage.