Using a Spare Router as WiFi Extender

Black Hole

Black Hole

May contain traces of nut
[This conversation continues from HERE (click)]

If you're gonna do it, do it right (as they say). I'm intending to optimise both WiFi and DECT coverage by appropriate siting of the transmitters. As I now have a spare router donated by O2 when I thought they had bricked my existing one, I also intend to set up a "guest" WiFi network which only gets turned on when needed and has a rolling simple encryption key (my personal key is a max-length string of random characters which is a pain to type in).
 
I am presuming it will work without an ADSL connection, I don't see why it shouldn't. Just connect it to your wired network and fire up the config browser to set up the WiFi parameters. Bingo, a second hot-spot (and more contention). If you set it up with identical credentials as your first hot-spot, your WiFi connected devices will move seamlessly from one to the other.

You might need to tweak the gateway IP address settings etc, I was going to work that out in due course.
 
Yes, you cannot have two ADSL connections, but I'd not thought of using the network ports and the WiFi bit as a network extender. I'll try that later when I return from my Friday pie and a pint.
 
Black Hole said:
I am presuming it will work without an ADSL connection, I don't see why it shouldn't. Just connect it to your wired network and fire up the config browser to set up the WiFi parameters. Bingo, a second hot-spot (and more contention). If you set it up with identical credentials as your first hot-spot, your WiFi connected devices will move seamlessly from one to the other.

You might need to tweak the gateway IP address settings etc, I was going to work that out in due course.
Click to expand...

I have two spare ports in my D-link powerline homeplug in the sitting room (2 ports used by T2 and Sony Blu ray) . My router is 25ft away with two thick walls between so a new hotspot would be useful in this room for the laptop. Can I connect a new router to the D-Link?
Regards
Rob
 
Yes I don't see why not. The 3-port Dlink is to all intents and purposes an Ethernet hub/switch extending the network from your main router. As long as you configure the extension router so that it takes care of the WiFi but delegates all the DHCP DNS and gateway stuff to the proper router you should be OK.
 
Thanks BH, I need to update my old Siemens router which can then be used as I mentioned in my post.
Regards
Rob
 
Dont forget that if you disable DHCP in the second router you will have to give it a fixed IP on the LAN settings that does not conflict with the active router's admin page IP address so that you know its address to access its admin pages.
When I connect my second router (disabled DHCP) to my active one through a switch, my computer connects to my network through it and the WiFi works, but it does not show as a connected item in my active routers 'connected devices' list, but my computer shows up with two different IP addresses. Strange or what? It still works OK though. I think that the problem with not showing up as connected, it is not meant to be used as a network client therefore does not look for a DHCP IP address from the active router. I'll have to have another root through the settings.
 
The router is probably set up to request a public-side DHCP on the ADSL (or fibre) link, it probably isn't looking for one on the Ethernet (which would normally be downsteam). Everything else ought to be ok though, if you can turn its DHCP off and make sure the DNS and gateway don't conflict.

Thanks for debugging my idea for me!
 
Hadn't thought of DND and gateway. I assumed that turning off DHCP would turn these off also. My main comp works OK as does my lappy through the 'new' WiFi, but strange about the main comp having two IPs. Havnt tried giving the WiFi on the second router the same credentials as the main one yet, as this experiment probably wouldn't work as at the moment the routers are pretty much co-located and I'll have to separate them. I have a nice long Ethernet lead.

The 'problem' I encountered was that the base IP address for the admin page on my Netgear (spare) is 192.168.0.1 and my Orange brightbox (in use) is 192.168.1.1 and I didnt think that I could access the .0.1 Netgear on my .1.1 networkbut I didn't try. This needs some further investigation though.

I'll do some more experimenting later and see if I can come up with a full report on my findings.
A problem that might occur is that the new 'guest' WiFi' will probably have full access to your network. The Orange Brightbox (in use) has the facility for three WiFi network names and a' guest' WiFi name can use one of the 'spare' names and be limited to Internet access only. I have set this up with a simple password as my full access WiFi has a strong random character password.

I think, that as this conversation is way off topic, it would be a good idea if a mod split this off with a new thread title from about half way through post #14.
 
I have made a request to the Gods re the topic split.

Interesting about the four WiFi networks facility, I had not considered that might be a possibility. I need to investigate what similar facility there might be in my O2 routers.
 
They might have multiple SSIDs, but if not, I recon that you could put a block on all local IP addresses apart from the default gateway?
One of the things that I am going to try in a bit.
The Brightbox has three SSIDs available, but I only have used two, not broadcasting the SSID of my network enabled one and broadcasting the SSID of the 'guest' WiFi.
 
Had another go at it this afternoon. Can't find a way of limiting full access to all my network shares etc.using the Netgear as a slave like I can with the bright box, but the WiFi 'extender' function works OK
 
I'm not bothered about limiting access - I'm not going to be giving the guest password to any old tom dick or harry, and the rest of the time it will be switched off.
 
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