I am having an argument with my house-mate about the wireless network. He has changed some settings on the router that allow him remote access to the router and something to do with emails. The result is I cannot use the wireless with my iPhone, but my laptop works fine. The other day I reset the router to factory settings and my iPhone worked. He has since re-applied his settings and now the iPhone is not working again. I think it is clear his settings are a problem.
I should also mention that he manages a network as a job.
I have suggested we buy another router and have two wireless networks, one each. He said it cannot be done.
We have a network cable going from the modem to the current router. From the router there are sockets that you can use to manually connect a PC to the router (with another network cable). Is there any reason why you cannot simply connect another router to the first router in this way? The second router will use the Internet connection coming from the first router and make it available on a second wireless network. Any traffic directed to the second network will go through the first router too. It is a fairly high speed cable connection. If there is a problem with this setup, what is it exactly and what are the alternatives.
Thanks in advance.
>Is there any reason why you cannot simply connect another router to the first router in this way?
You would not connect a router, you would connect a wireless access point that doesn’t route. Like this one
Frankly, your roommate sounds hostile. Why cant he tell you what settings he is using? The iphone supports a lot of wireless settings. Mine is set to do WPA - AES at home. Iphone supports WEP, WPA, and WPA2. Dont try to solve a social problem with a technological one. Talk to your roommate.
This. You don’t need another router, you need another roommate.
Agree with the previous posters about the roommate.
But to the OP:
yes it can be done.
You need another cable/dsl modem or a roommate willing to set up a second router as an access point to the first. (not likely as this would still be the same network at the first router level (two wireless networks, one connection to the internet, one wired network) and theres no reason to do this that can’t be accomplished internally with the first wireless router)(okay, there are but they don’t apply to the OP)
So get another cable modem and connect your own router. be sure to change the default password and set up some form of secure network on it.
My in-laws’ house has two separate DSL connections going to it because they couldn’t solve the social problem with sharing a single connection.
As for the technical problem, use a wireless access point; just make sure you configure it with a different network name (SID) and different channel.
There shouldn’t be any setting that allows remote access or changes email relaying while also blocking the iPhone from connecting. How does the iPhone not work; does it fail to see the wireless network, fail to connect (changed password?), or connect and fail to browse the web?
thanks for the advice so far. I think a social solution is out of reach frankly. I am waiting for the lease to run out so I can move and I think he is too. At I have learned some important lessons about sharing a network.
I think I may have muddled some terminology. We use something that looks a lot like the picture in the above link. Maybe it is a wireless access point, maybe a router or both. So if we get another wireless access point, it will be simple to plug it into whatever we are using at the moment and have another wireless network?
J Cubed, my iPhone cannot see the network at all but it can see a neighbors. My partners iPod could not see the network either.
Perhaps he has turned off SSID broadcast. In that case type in the network’s name into your iphone under Choose a network… Other. You’ll probably need to specify sercurity. See what your laptop is using.
Have you tried manually entering the network info?
Settings->Wi-Fi->Choose a Network…“Other”
Enter the name of the network, the type, and then it prompts you for a password. Your roommate should have all of this information.
If your roomate is changing things interally he can be specifically blocking your phone and ipod. He doesn’t want you on that network for some reason. I doubt he’d want you on it as another wireless network that is still a subnet of that network. You still use his bandwidth - which he seems protective of.
The solution is to get another cable modem/dsl modem and create your own network on that.
Could be that he just has the network set not to broadcast its name (SSID). Don’t know anything about iPhone web browsers, but could you try connecting manually (by entering the name of the network) instead of just browsing for it?
ETA: Damn work, making me the third post instead of the first to suggest this. :shakesfist:
How about just stealing your neighour’s bandwidth? (Mine all have locked networks - can’t hardly steal bandwidth these days. 
)
Check out the manual SSID suggestion first.
As others have said, this will work. Just buy an access point without routing and plug it in as you described. Use a different SSID name and different channel as mentioned up-thread. Or you can also use an access point with routing and just disable the routing in the configuration (but that may be a bit more work). I do this in my home and it works fine.
I have two wireless networks in my house from a single cable modem. It’s easy to do.
One network is my main network: It is password protected and full speed. The other is an “open network” the number of connections are limited to just three and the bandwidth is limited. This way, if a friend brings a laptop or iPhone to my house, they can use it without me giving them my network password. I throttle the network and limit the connections, so it won’t overwhelm my protected network.
There is absolutely no reason why you can’t have two wireless routers. There are two issues: One is IP address assignment and the other is whether the two routers can or cannot talk to each other. The first is easy enough to do. My open router assigns one narrow range of addresses and my other router gets the IP addresses from the cable modem. Nor, do I allow the two networks to see each other.
I agree with Joe Frinkin’ Friday: You don’t really need another router, you need another roommate.
<hijack=slight>
So who owns the Internet access? In other words, in whose name is the ISP account?
Who owns the equipment, you or your housemate?
</hijack>
Ultimately you need a different housemate.
I have turned off the SSID broadcast on my home wireless router to discourage casual neighborhood browsers. It is likely he has done the same thing. If he is a netword tech simply tell him your iphone cannot communicate and so that you can both be happy you need the wireless SSID and the password. If you enter these manually into the iphone wireless access dialog boxes the iphone should be able to log on and work.
You can’t use multiple modems that way.
BTW, turning of SSID is useless and an example of security through obscurity. Anyone who has the skill to break your encryption can detect an SSID-less network. Just leave it on and set the encryption to WPA2, pick a nice long passphrase, and call it a day. Same with mac address whitelisting. If I can crack your setup either via WEP cracking or a dictionary attack on your WPA password, then trust me, I can spoof your macs.
What way?
With Cable modems you can hook up as many modems as you want to the coax, just have to have enough outlets/splitters…You’re sharing bandwidth - but its band width you’re already sharing with everyone in your neighborhood.
With DSL modems, you may have to have another phone line though.
If you want to use two cable modems AFAIK all ISPs will require two accounts. DSL is one modem per line.
Thanks for all the answers. Good to know that I can have 2 wireless networks if I want.
An update to my situation: I have reset the router again and now my phone works no problem. I told my house mate that it is my router and I want to keep the settings that work for me, after all he is still able to access the Internet from home like most people do. Then we had a bit of an argument about the feasibility of having 2 networks. He insists that it can’t be done and sarcastically said “Yeah, you do this everyday” . After the phone call (he was at work) I sent him a text “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go and get another router to use as a wireless access point and if it doesn’t work you can have all the settings you want. If it does you give me the cost of the router and the router is yours. Surely that is a fair compromise, you don’t even have to do anything.”.
He replied with “Don’t bother. I doubt I will be staying there much longer so do what you want.”
I cant imagine why he wouldn’t accept this risk free deal, other that he has been trying to bullsh*t me this whole time and doesn’t want to be exposed.