My office has a wireless n router. The problem is that, due to the type of construction (hurricane resistant), range is poor - less than 100’. What are differences/benefits as far as range extenders vs. WAPs with Power over Ethernet? Or are they, essentially, the same thing? Is it possible to merely run a CAT 5 wire from one of the ports on our wireless router to a WAP up in the ceiling and have it work? Reading the reviews of one WAP leads me to believe that it can be a technical challenge to get one of these things working correctly. Believe me, technological aptitude is not a strong point around here.
Poe equipment just used 48vdc over 2 unused Ethernet wires.
I don’t see any range extension using that vs regular wall power.
If the wap is configured, poe will be fine. If the router you have doesn’t do pie, you can get a poe objectors, which will work for you.
ETA
poe = power over ethernet
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk
A wifi Range Extender is a WAP configured to attach to the wired access point SSID and rebroadcast it. When traffic flows across the Range Extender it uses wifi to talk to the wired access point. This two-way wifi chatter reduces the bandwidth on the wifi network.
If you can wire the extension with CAT5 you will get better results network wise. The main issue with additional WAPs is that that will need to do DHCP forwarding, passing DHCP requests through to the main DHCP server (either the existing Access point, or your network server). As noted by eldowan, you can get POE adaptors if your equipment is currently not POE capable and you don’t have power available.
Si
I was with you up until DHCP forwarding. What is it, how hard is it to set up and why is it an issue? The WAP we’re looking (Cisco P4410N) at is PoE.
Many Wireless Access Points/Routers have a built in DHCP server, as they are the primary network device for a single segment network (wireless plus wired). Additional WAPs effectively partition the network into additional segments, but DHCP is a local segment broadcast protocol. DHCP Forwarding allows DHCP requests to be passed from one segment to another. It can be a problem when using home network WAPs. Your Cisco device will probably be fine, as they have a good appreciation of the details of IP networking.
Si
My WAP seems to have gone on the blink so I went to get another one yesterday at Best Buy. BB doesn’t carry them anymore… I wonder why??
The salesman suggested a new wireless router which would be powerful enough such that I don’t need the WAP anymore. So far so good as far as that goes but I’m still curious whether I’m going to have issues when the family is here for the holidays and 5-6 of us want wireless access at the same time.
BTW … just as we were leaving another customer came in and asked for a WAP (apparently for college dorm use).
In my experience, home network WAPs – as distinct from home routers – simply bridge Layer 2 traffic between the wired port and the wireless, with both interfaces being part of the same Layer 2 broadcast domain.
Have I just been looking at the wrong home WAPs?
If you are going to run a Cat5 cable, you can use any old wireless router at the other end as a Wireless Access Point, no need for a wireless repeater
http://www.tested.com/tech/298-how-to-use-an-old-router-to-expand-your-wi-fi-network/
WAP - Wireless Access Point - just a radio that connects wireless devices to the network. A “bridge” in ethernet terms, it echos wireless packets onto thee wire, and vice versa. Just plug into your office network.
(Home) Router - creates a separate network and interfaces it to the internet. it may include wired and wireless ports. Typically these do NAT on the internet port (Natural Address Translation) where the inside network has a private addressing scheme (usually 192.198.0.x where x=1 to 254) and translates all traffic to asingle address on the internet side.
Routers also do functions like DHCP (hand out addresses) and DNS forwarding (name recognition - i.e. translate “www.google.com” to IP numbers); however, in a moderate sized office you may have a windows server that does this instead.
Range Extender - typically, a repeater - receives and repeats wireless signals, a relay between your device and a (possibly) out or range WAP or router. just needs power.
You want additional coverage in your building, here’s the simplest solution - figure out your current IP address scheme; from a DOS box, type “ipconfig”. Most likely it will be something like 192.168.0.x or 10.0.0.x (Our telco’s router/DSL modem uses 192.168.100.x, though…)
Find a spare address, not used by a hard-coded device or DHCP. (usually DHCP will hand out addresses like 192.168.0.100-150 or some such range). also note the net mask (usually 255.255.255.0 and the default gateway (usually 192.168.0.254 or 192.168.0.1) let’s say you give it 192.168.0.17
Take a brand new router; do not plug into the network. Unplug a wired PC and plug it into this router using the network port (NOT THE INTERNET PORT) it will give you its own DHCP address. Disable DHCP; configure the Wifi network secuity; and give the device the IP selected, the netmask, and the gateway. Once you save the new IP address, you can plug the router into the office netwrok. You can now access it (web page) with the new address (In our example, http://192.168.0.17).
Do not use the WAN/internet port, but one of the other ports can be connected to the office network (LAN). Because the new router does not hand out addresses, it simply bridges traffic between any wired ports and the wireless ports onto the rest of the network. DHCP request broadcasts will come from the same device that provides them now. (However, a WIfi Router will NOT act as a relay repeater (typically) unless you buy one with such an option - so it must be hardwired onto the office network.) DHCP hands out the defaults for gateway (access to internet) and DNS (name recognition) so everyone is using the same values.
You can give the device the same network SSID name or a different one. If it has the same SSID, devices will connect (usually) to the nearest, loudest one. If you move, at a certain point your iPhone or laptop will decide to find a better singal, will drop AP A and connect to AP B. However, until it decides the signal is too weak, it may stay connected to the further AP unless you manually disconnect and reconnect.
Note also if it has the same SSID, when you change the password on one, you must also change it on the other (hence the need to give an accessible IP address to the new router - write the address on a piece of tape, stick it to the router…)
Ignore the issue aboput DHCP helper addresses.
DHCP works with broadcasts - a newly powered on device yells “Hello, anyone, I need an address”.
The DHCP Server replies with an offer for one “take my address… please!”
The new device then can accept with another broadcast “Got it” and begins using it.
It is all broadcast because the device has no information yet about the network and no address itself, it is a “cry for help”.
Broadcasts do not go through routers (i.e. outside the local address) normally.
(It will in the example configuration i went through above, because it’s bridging the internal network, not routing through the internet/WAN port to a different IP range.)
A helper address configuration - usually on fancier, more advanced routers - basically says if you hear a broadcast for DHCP, pass it onto this other network and to this address; when you hear the response, broadcast it back on the statring network.
This allows you to set up DHCP in one spot for multiple networks. However, unless you are a fancy, multibranch office network with an anal IT department, you probably won’t need this.
there is an alternativ configuration, where you plug the new router’s WAN/Internet port set as DHCP into the office LAN and use NAT, but then you don’t get office broadcasts and you must be sure the IP numbering is different; not a good configuration unless you enjoy network challenges or don’t want the Wifi devices to have easy access to your servers, other people’s computers, etc.
Good luck!
You are correct, but (back in 2011/2012) I had a couple of friends purchasing wifi extension devices that were actually routers and not bridges, which I then had to configure. I must have had it on my mind.