"Extreme" Wi-Fi Router: A Quarter-Mile of Coverage

Need to blanket your house—along with a few surrounding city blocks—with Wi-Fi coverage? The Extreme Range Wi-Fi Router is here.

Gizmodo has the goods on this $284 monster of a wireless router, which promises to blast out your Wi-Fi signal up to a quarter-mile in every direction. According to its specs, the Extreme Range router packs in 30 dBm of power, the maximum allowed by the FCC (standard Wi-Fi routers only manage about 20 dBm, while FM radio stations average about 80 dBm). The router supports the usual 802.11b/g wireless standards, along with WEP, WPA2, and WPA-Enterprise encryption. Also on board (according to an informed Gizmodo commentator): a battery of fans to keep the Extreme from melting down.

Is the Extreme Range Wi-Fi Router overkill for most of us? Absolutely, and the $284 price tag is pretty steep. Then again, for someone like me who lives in a high-density area with literally dozens of competing Wi-Fi networks in the vicinity, the Extreme might be an effective (if rather unneighborly) way to up the ante.

Related:
Extreme Range Wi-Fi Router Reaches a Quarter Mile [Gizmodo]