Does anyone know of a way to extend the range of a wireless network? I know that dlink makes a wireless range extender, but they say it only works for their product and my network is a mix of brands (none d-link). Any ideas or insights would be great!

As long as the extender is compliant (A, B or G) with your AP or router it should work, this includes DLink. Where you might have a problem is with WEP and throughput, but if you use the lowest common denominator for encryption and do not DLink accelerated mode it should work just fine.

Just pick up two AP's and a switch! Have one AP be a client to your primary network and the other AP rebroadcast the signal on a different SSID and Channel. Those "range-extenders" are just amplifiers. They increase the transmit power of your AP. I've never tried those with CPE hardware, so I couldn't tell you what increased range to expect.

I have a question for each of the contributors. To Rpete: I am currently not using any wireless encryption on this segment of my wireless network. So you suggest that it would work fine as a repeater with my wireless belkin router? To wirelessguru: Is that very easy to set up? Since where the wireless router is located in my house is my only interent connection would it really help to mount two more access points in the room with it? Thanks for both your help!

the additonal AP's would go in a different location than your current AP. Most likely in an area with lower signal. It's fairly easy to configure just set the first AP as a client to your exsisting AP (basically you're setting it up as a wireless to ethernet bridge). Then configure the second AP as a AP with a different SSID and channel than your primary AP. This will allow the client to roam between the two AP's and choose which AP to associate with based on signal strength. Depending on your skill set and knowledge of networks this may not be an easy configuration. I've never used a CPE "wireless-repeater", most of the stuff I've dealt with or seen is enterprise - carrier class stuff. So I'm not sure how well they work but in essence it is the same thing as I described above, I just havent seen a "repeater" for the customer prem.

So from what i gather you told me i must have a wired internet connection available somewhere else in the area. I don't have that option.