Wireless Performance of Pepwave Surf Soho MK3 Router: Any recommendation for extender or repeater for wifi?

First time buyer of Pepwave Surf Soho MK3 Router. I love it in my home network, but wireless sucks big time in my dwelling space. Is there any recommended wifi extender or repeater for this product?

I have a ranch style house with basement, main living area, and a loft. It’s about 4300 sq ft. Relatively open space. My veriozon connection comes to the basement (first floor really becaues the house is on the hill and have a patio door at the basement open to the sloping hill). My previous router covered the house pretty well. I changed to MK3 router because the consumer router product doesn’t seem to get enough update (TP-Link stopped updating my product 2 years after the purchase).

If anyone has any success adding any wifi extender or repeater, I like to know about them so I can make an informed decision.

Hey home user here,

Sure, it’s simple. Don’t buy an “extender”. OTOH fancy antennas are expensive and might not work?

Often times you can reposition the router or reorient it to get better coverage. First try centrally locating the router or put it near a window.

Check the client list to see if signal strength has improved in the problem areas. The stronger the signal the faster the connection.

For a larger home you will probably require better antennas or more AP’s.

Omnis radiate in all directions = easier to use. Centrally locate the router. Could get a little pricey as you would need 3 of these. Probably won’t cover all of the outlying areas. Do they sell a cheaper indoor version 9db omni?

https://www.l-com.com/wireless-antenna-24-58-ghz-9-dbi-dual-band-omni-antenna

Yagi’s are directional. So you would have to locate the router at one end of the house or something? Also - you might not want to stand in front of it for too long due to EIRP considerations. Could get a little pricey as you would need 3 of these. Buy one get one? Are they having their spring sale?

:smile:

For the money you might be better off buying an AP One?

You could probably even purchase a second SURF SOHO more affordably than 3 antennas and connect it via WIFI WAN or ethernet. This has the added advantage of redundancy just in case one goes down. The SURF double NATs nicely = plug and play. I like this solution the best. The SURF SOHO is literally that valuable IMO and then you have an easy back up with the downloadable configurations or inControl.

Call a peplink provider in your area and see what they say.

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Antenna didn’t sound like a solution. I was leaning toward peplink AP solution, but I didn’t think about another SOHO router as an AP. It’s true that the MK3 router is cheap enough for me to buy one more won’t be a major issue.

Take a look at forum article “Compatible Wifi Extenders for Pepwave Surf SOHO” from March 2020. The Peplink Team points out that the Pepwave Device Connector can be deployed to transparently extend a SSID. I suggested an AmpliFi HD router for extending the SSID, something that I was familiar with. Someone else responded that they had problems with AmpliFi HD beacons (“candle sticks”), something I have never used. I’ve only used the AmpliFi HD router, not the beacon. So it may be prudent to ignore the AmpliFi HD router in favor of other options.

At the end of that thread, I suggested a second Surf Soho. However I wasn’t and I am still not sure whether or not a second Surf Soho can extend the original Surf Soho’s SSID or whether you will end up with two SSID’s. I noted that “It would be a great trick”. I hope it can.

I also suggested that you could simply replace (disable) the Surf Soho WiFi and connect up a Eero mesh in bridge mode to the Surf Soho. The Eero 3 pack generation 2 is usually available at the sale price of $199 and has good WiFi performance.

More details will be found in that thread. I will also note that some people who know what they are doing install a second Access Point, like the well recommended TP-Link EAP225v3 ($70), as a stand-alone WiFi extender (wired, by MoCA if necessary) on the same SSID as the Surf Soho. It can work fairly well if both are set to disconnect weak devices, forcing the clients to re-connect to a closer unit. That advice can apply to a second Surf Soho, where I believe you would set Client Signal Strength Threshold appropriately on both Surf Soho units.

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Much appreciated for your feedback. I was looking into a possibility of using two MK3 router. I wasn’t really getting a lot of information form the preliminary quick research.

v/r

Hey home user here,

I would like to purchase a second SOHO MK3 for a back up. Instead of just letting it sit on a shelf unplugged I thought it would be fun to try crosslinking them with dual ISPs.

Disclaimer:

This configuration is intended for the more adventurous home user with over 2 years SOHO MK3 experience that wants a spare SOHO MK3 for back up anyways just in case. Also I haven’t personally tested any of this yet…

Layout:

…have one SOHO MK3 at either end of your house - but still within range of each other. One is connected to DSL and the other is connected to cable ISP. If one goes down - the other should still be up.

Now the fun part - create secondary failover “WIFI WAN on 2.4/5Ghz” on each one pointing at each other.

Now if one ISP goes down that SOHO will failover to the other one - if they are close enough to each other. This might be an ideal application for 5Ghz 802.11ac since it has a more sophisticated management algorithm and higher bandwidth.

The SOHO’s might not be too happy if you use the same SSID - it might think there is a rogue AP? So you might have to use different SSID’s - let’s call these things SOHO1 and SOHO2.

Every wireless client device would have to have both SSID’s programmed into them. And…you would have to configure the “Client Signal Strength Threshold” for around -65 to -75dbm so clients would “choose” the right one - no guarantees there either.

The SOHO does not support 802.11kvr (roaming) as far as I know which means users might have to manually select the SSID of their choice - pretty easy to do.

2nd Disclaimer:
Also I might buy a third one for test purposes or as a spare.

:white_check_mark:

Check with a Peplink partner for the best solution.

Hello there.

After reading a few things, I am leaning toward AP or Device Connector. Reached out to Peplink partner for some clarification (they look identical) and any recommendation beside what I am planning to do.

v/r

Hello and Good Day
I must say…try to move the Surf soho to another location first. Make sure it’s around four feet off of the floor.
I have to suggest this to you because I get incredibly great WiFi coverage with the Surf soho. The room that it’s located in has all kinds of things going on, and again great WiFi coverage.
The Southwest corner of our property is approximately 300 feet away from the Soho, I can go over there with an iPad and get all three bars for WiFi on it.
It’s worth a try to move it if possible.

Thanks for the reply.

My older wifi was in the living room before. It covered the basement, most of living floor and loft.

MK3 is replacing my Verizon FIOS router as well so it went to the Basement. Compare to my older TP-LINK, I get about 40~60% coverage throughout the home with MK3 installed in basement. Moving it to the old wifi location may improve the
situation, but that’s not what I am looking for. I want this to be at the edge and use other ways to improved the signal strength or coverage. Luckily, there has been a lot of good suggestions so I have some ideas to play with.

V/r

MC