Why would you want the standard ones to be 5dB - 3dB is ideal for general purpose.

If you bought a hosepipe and it came with a spray attachment, would you be happy if that attachment only had "powerful narrow jet" ? Not much good for general watering
unless you only needed it to water hanging baskets 30ft in the air... This is exactly how aerials work.

Quite so; an aerial is a passive device and can only produce "gain" by focussing the energy supplied to it in certain directions. If your receiving device is not in one of these lobes of a high gain antenna you will receive less signal than from an omnidirectional low gain one.

admin wrote: Why would you want the standard ones to be 5dB - 3dB is ideal for general purpose.

Reason: in the past with different wireless equipment I have upgraded to higher gain antennae and have found it has helped with signal strength. I understand that there is no guarantee of an improvement but I am open-minded and willing to give it a try.

GaryDrew wrote:

admin wrote: Why would you want the standard ones to be 5dB - 3dB is ideal for general purpose.

Reason: in the past with different wireless equipment I have upgraded to higher gain antennae and have found it has helped with signal strength. I understand that there is no guarantee of an improvement but I am open-minded and willing to give it a try.

Not sure you understand me - the product has to be sold for general usage, so providing a high-gain aerial as standard would be worse for most people...

Yes, I understand. My confusion arose because when I looked at the antennae on my new Vigor 2860 they looked slightly bigger than the typical short rubber-ducks on my other wireless equipment, that’s why I wondered if they might have been slightly more powerful.

Interestingly, I noticed that some IP camera manufacturers, such as Tenvis, did briefly bring out revised products with stronger antennae. Perhaps that was just a marketing tactic.

I also did upgrade the antennae on one of my WAPs and on some of my IP cameras and it did help with signal reception. I guess it's hit and miss for different equipment.

GaryDrew wrote: stronger antennae

More focussed/narrow not stronger