Advice on increasing WIFI range

[stozi]

Hi, I'm using my PBP to work remotely. I'd like to visit cafes in rather poorly developed countries and not have to worry too much about the wifi signal. 

I'm wondering if I can get a Mini U.FL PCI to RP-SMA cable, maybe bore a hole in the case to attach some kind of heavy-duty Wifi antenna directly to the existing wifi antenna ports. Would that help or would it be pointless as it wouldn't raise the voltage to the antenna? 

Would it then make more sense to get a long-range USB Wifi adapter?

could I even splice the RP-SMA cable into the existing antenna and use it, with the extra bulk of an external antenna, only when necessary?

Thanks!

[KC9UDX]

I use a small USB Wi-Fi stick, which has much better connectivity. It's a simple, cheap, and effective solution.

[barray]

Hi, I'm using my PBP to work remotely. I'd like to visit cafes in rather poorly developed countries and not have to worry too much about the wifi signal.

Is WiFi signal really that bad in cafe's in some Countries? I imagine you're going to drop bandwidth through sharing with so many other devices and the cafe internet connection not being so great - not dropped WiFi packets? You would really need to have tonnes of network traffic to cause such a situation.

Would highly recommend picking up a VPN if you're planning to connect to random WiFi routers, DNS spoofing and ARP poisoning are quite real threats. Using a VPN may even speed up your connection a little depending on the location.

The absolute best thing to do is to reduce your internet use entirely. One way is to use heavy local caching, in Firefox for example: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1272857 (Make sure you read all of the comments.) If you're streaming music whilst you work, store everything locally.

Would it then make more sense to get a long-range USB Wifi adapter?

Just go with the USB WiFi adapter from the start, you should be able to find something quite powerful with a decent antenna. You're basically maxed out when your antenna has the same power at the antenna as the router anyway.

I wouldn't go cutting holes into your laptop, this is going to cause other problems to structural integrity and the ingress of dirt. The last thing you're going to want is your machine letting go on you out where spare parts won't come easily.