I found a weird way to get a solid internet signal in a dead zone apartment in Medellin

Last month I rented a place in Laureles that looked perfect, but the wifi was a joke. I'm talking 2 Mbps on a good day, and my video calls kept dropping. The landlord said that was just how it was. I tried a normal signal booster, but it did nothing. Then I saw a guy at a cafe using a cheap USB wifi adapter with a long cable and an external antenna. I bought a TP-Link TL-WN722N for about $20, ran the cable out my window, and taped the antenna to a metal pipe on the roof. It sounds nuts, but I went from 2 Mbps to a steady 25 Mbps by connecting to a cafe's network two blocks away. It's not stealing if you ask, which I did, and they said yes. Has anyone else had to get this creative to make a place workable, or did I just get lucky?

3 comments

3 Comments

logan7052mo ago

That TP-Link hack is genius.

felix_henderson542mo ago

It's a clever workaround, not really a hack. You're just using the guest network feature as it was built. Still gets the job done for separating smart home stuff.

susana662mo ago

Actually, that's a total hack in my book. Running cable out the window and taping an antenna to a pipe is next-level DIY. Most people would just suffer or move. Smart move asking the cafe first, that's the real key.