Question about encryption

I recently set up a personal home network for someone, and I encrypted the network so that only his laptop and his desktop could access it. He has a large house, and the router is in one corner of the house with his kitchen on the other side. He is getting a weak signal in his kitchen, and his son told him that he would remove the encryption to give him a stronger signal. I am by no means a networking expert, nor am I, however, a novice, but I have never heard of encryption lowering the signal strength of a wireless network. I was always under the impression that the signal was the same, it just meant you had to have the key to get access to that signal.

Can anyone with a little better knowledge of this matter please help me out and let me know if I am right or not. Thanks for any help you guys can give!!

 

Security has absolutly nothing to do with low signal. Sure it slows speeds down but just by a hair. Sadly, you need to move the router away from the kitchen. It operates on a 2.4 GHz frequency and that interferes with microwaves espeacially, fridges, stoves, dish washes, oven etc. Even tv's. So your best bet is to move the router.

 

That's sort of the problem....the router is a long way from the kitchen to begin with. The kitchen is downstairs on one side of the house, and the router is upstairs on the other side of the house. I am thinking that a signal booster might be needed somewhere halfway in between....is that a reasonable assumption?

 

Oh my bad, i thought you said the router was right by the kitchen, i guess you will need boosters and extenders to get rid of the dead spots so yes.

 

I would try high-gain antennas before the booster, especially if you just need a slightly stronger signal. They're cheaper, and most boosters (like the Linksys) will halve the speed of the network to anything connected through the booster anyway.

Any way you can re-position the router in a more central location in the house? Maybe use a longer Cat5 cable between the router and modem if that's an issue?

-Lee

 

he wanted the router hard-wired to the desktop (it is really a hybrid network...not completely wireless) which is in his office, since the desktop isn't wireless-capable. Either way, I just wanted to confirm with you guys that I wasn't losing my mind and that his son was incorrect. Thanks guys....