My home office happens to be quite close to a few work people and friends. All of us thought it would be convenient to be able to connect via a Wireless LAN bypassing Internet. Wireless LANs are commercially available at pretty low costs but they can't cover the couple block radius that we are in.
So I started thinking about a cheap way to increase coverage.
WiFI or 802.11b technology is becoming increasingly popular for Wireless LANÃ's. This allows for extending a wired LAN without running more cables as well as have laptops roam freely. The system consists of Access Ports connected to the wired LAN that communicate wirelessly to WiFi LAN cards connected to laptops, etc.
The access speed hits 11Mbps- that's comparable to wired LAN bit rates. The main limiting factor is distance. Vendors quote different stat's but even within the best conditions [wall-less office] the max distance is about 500 feet and after the speed drops up all the way to a measly 1 Mbps. In reality offices have walls and the coverage is drops to about 80 feet.
To solve this, companies typically distribute multiple access points, each connect to the wired LAN, around the office. This is a perfect solution to add additional LAN ports in a wired area, but what if wireless LAN is for an un-wired space? I guess you could run a skeleton wired LAN for just the access point that connect individual laptops wirelessly. This would be MUCH easier than creating typical wired LAN but kill the essence of a wireless LAN. And more important, in some cases like mine, running wires between access points is not feasible [the city won't go for the 100 foot network cable across the avenue].
The solution' a WiFi signal replicators. Basically functions as a combo WiFi Card/Access Point, located at the coverage edge of the main access point. The WiFi Card part finds the 'master' Access Point and grabs the signal. Then the Access Point part relays this signal out to the WiFi Cards and other 'slave' WiFi Card/Access Point combo's. Hence doubling the linear coverage distance.
Daisy chain such replicators to [theoretically] infinitely increase the range. Yes, at least one Access Point would need to be connected to a wired Internet network but every thing else is totally unleashed. Also good for use in an old school or factory or to set up a temporary LAN.
BTW, Compaq sells a product 'Range Extender Antenna' [see link] which is a wire and an antenna- that can increase the signal range somewhat but not in this manner.