Can a Wireless Router act like a Wireless Card?

Factual Questions
1

I hope I phrased that question well.

Essentially, I have two wireless routers. Can I use one of them to wirelessly access the signal being output by the other router, which is connected to my cable modem (both are Linksys WRT54Gs btw)?

In other words, can it act like a wireless card which would be used to access a wireless access point? If so, how would I go about this?

Thanks!

2

That setup is usually called a wireless bridge, where you use 2 wireless devices to convert a wired signal, to a wireless through one ‘router’ then the other gets the wireless signal and converts it back to wired. Some alternative configerations is that the second ‘router’ just repetes the wireless signal, or a combo of a bridge and repeter.

Can you use the ones you have for this, probabally not, some have multi functions (repeter, bridging), but most don’t.

If it does support it you should be able to see it in the routers menu.

3

I’m not sure if the WRT54g has a bridging mode built in by default.

However, you can install OpenWRT, which is a replacement firmware based on Linux, and use the WRT54g as a bridge. I do this in my house to bridge several wired networks in different rooms so I don’t have to run cable everywhere.

Of course, you will need some Linux savvy to do this, and some versions of the WRT54g are more difficult to install OpenWRT on (some models have very little flash in them, which makes it difficult to install replacement firmware).

Linksys sells the WRT54gL which is a version guaranteed to have sufficient flash to install OpenWRT or one of the other replacement firmwares (such as DD-WRT).

If you look around you can sometimes find bridges very inexpensively that are sold for connecting consoles (such as an Xbox or PS2). These should still work fine for a PC, but may not support some advanced security features (for example, if you are using WPA). Linksys sells the WET11 and WET54 bridges, but these usually retail for about US$100.

4

The model you have will not work without replacing the firmware. I tried to do exactly this and ended up having to but Linksys access points (without a router built in) to make it work.