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Adding another router to home network


thundertwonk

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Hey, I've got a Linksys (Cisco) E2500 router in my living room connected to the cable modem.. Wifi really doesn't reach to the other end of the house so I was thinking of adding in another router (my old netgear WNR2000) and putting it in my office (so myself, kids and wife ) could hard wire while we sit in the office...

so my question is,

what would be the best way to do this? should I keep the stock firmware on both routers or do DDWRT (im not looking to link the two routers though wifi, was going to run a 200-300ft Ethernet cable along the floor to our office room..)

I know i need to set on router to xxx.xxx.xxx.001 and the other to xxx.xxx.xxx.002, anything else i should look into? what about boosting the wifi? both routers support BGN (or at least GN which most my device use..)

Thanks for the help

David

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There is no need to flash any aftermarket firmware for this...

As you correctly pointed out, you should assign a static IP address that is not in the range of the dhcp server of your 1st router to your 2nd router (technically you degraded it to wifi access point).

On your 2nd router you should also disable any guest wifi and the dhcp server. The dhcp server on the second router isn't a problem in itself, as long as the dhcp ranges do not overlap, but consumer grade router do advertise themselves as default gateway via dhcp and this is not what you want. Also you cannot use the the wan port on your second router, as it won't be bridged to the lan ports/wifi.

Both issues can be addressed by using aftermarket firmware such as OpenWrt, but it is not necessary.

You might want to use the same wifi- essid/encryption/password to make roaming easier for your devices.

Also note that 300ft ~= 90m which is close the the 100m that the ethernet standard defines as the max distance before the signals have to be amplified, so you might want to keep an eye on the cable quality.

Boosting transmission power is a really bad idea. Not only does it become illegal pretty soon, it is also useless in most cases if not counterproductive. Imagine a device that is far from your wifi access point, it will need to transmit at full power in order for the access point to have a decent signal. However if the device receives a signal that is too strong, it might be fooled into believing that it is near a access point and that it can reduce its transmission power.

If you want to improve your signal, you probably want to buy a antenna with a high antenna gain and REDUCE transmission power.

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If you're just looking to hardwire on that side of the house, why not add a non-managed gigabit switch?

If you are not against spending some money, you can get whole house coverage with a few strategically placed wireless access points. I recently installed 3x Engenius wireless access points on a property that was about 5 acres, with a house that is 3 stories plus a basement. The whole house, bottom to top, has wireless coverage as well as the back yard near the pool/garage. I think in total the hardware was about $600-700. We did go a bit overboard with an outside certified wireless access point that is on the flag pole near the garage, but that was what the customer wanted. You could get away with one or two access points for less than $300-400.

Chmod1337 is correct about the transmit power. Typically you start to affect your signal quality when you boost the TX power and suffer lost frames/dropped connections. The TX power and antenna gain should match the antenna design.

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  • 5 months later...

It's already 5 months back for the OP, but i'll explain my setup with 1 router and 2 routers in Acces Point (AP) mode.

Setup the first router with fixed LAN IP: 192.168.1.1 connect Internet to router WAN port. Setup DHCP to use the range 192.168.1.100-192.168.1.200 setup a Wireless LAN SSID like: WLAN-Home

Setup the other routers/ap with a fixed IP like 192.168.1.2 or higher for multiple devices, disable DHCP server, setup Wireless LAN with exactly the same SSID as on the router. This way you can roam across your house.

Be sure to reduce transmit power on a level that your laptop/phone picks up the signal of the nearest Access point.

Connect the extra routers/ap's by cable to the first router's switch ports. Do not use the WAN ports on these devices. This way you can create a roaming setup at your home/office/garden.

I installed an AP on every floor of my house. Try to keep away of large electrical circuits and coated windows with all kinds of isolation foils in between. I have a feeling they absorb a lot of the send wifi energy.

I had to install wiring through the house. I tried Powerline, but that did not work in my setup. The speed was to slow.

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  • 3 weeks later...

dont go with the Engenius, they have very high failure rates and about my college used to be full of them. About 70% of them failed in 2 years. If you can increase transmission power than you can use a better antenna or directional ones if your router has multiple antennas. There are better wifi APs like Ubiquiti. If you want to reuse old wifi routers make sure you turn of their dhcp function and wire them together for better performance instead of using it as a wireless repeater. You should have the wireless SSID on both routers to be the same but if possible, set different channels for them that do not overlap or you can leave the channels on auto if you have too many neighbours.

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To add a little more to this discussion, if you do want to use another SOHO wireless router to be an AP and you want to use the same SSID on this device, not only do you want to follow the procedure about turning off the DHCP server on this router and setting an IP for the router outside of the DHCP scope, you need to set the operating channel of this router to one that is not the same as the current wireless router. For 2.4 GHz, the non overlapping channels are 1, 6, and 11. If the current router is set for channel 1, you want the extra router to be set on 6 or 11.

This is not an optimal design though. The problem is if you expect to get decent roaming performance, it's not going to happen with this setup. Both APs will be transmitting at the maximum power or a preset power which is usually enough to cause interference with the other wireless router in a home setting. A unified/centrally managed system will coordinate the operation of APs so they are not over transmitting causing interference with a neighboring AP. The system will also provide features such as auto channel selection to optimize RF performance based on your ambient RF noise.

There was a mention of Ubiquiti and Engenius. Other vendors are Aruba and Meraki.

I have a Aruba/Dell PowerConnect W in my home system.

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  • 1 year later...

I know someone else mentioned it in their own experience it didnt work.

For me I have a huge concrete wall and well its not helping the wifi... :D

I used a powerline and it worked great, not even a drop in speed!!!

D-Link PowerLine AV2 2000 Gigabit Starter Kit (DHP-701AV) : Range Extenders & Powerline Networking - Best Buy Canada

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  • 1 month later...
  • 6 months later...

I added a "BELKIN Router Wireless-N 600Mbps BELKIN Play N600DB F9K1102UK" upstairs recently for exactly the same reasons, the range wasn't sufficient.

 

Its actually a great little router, offers a guest login codes, is dual channel and has great speeds, did a lot of research before the purchase and it was the best for the price in my region.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Older post, but for people looking into this, I'd recommend Ubiquity as a possible solution.  Once the access points are setup, You can either wire each one back to a central switch, or if you just use the POE injector, the AP will detect it has no connectivity and reconnect to another AP using wireless. 

 

One advantage is you don't have to manage individual AP's, you can go into the console and make changes which will be pushed down to all Access Points. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

better you can get PLC (Power Line Communications) , this device AP.  share your home internet by  electric installation.  very quick installation config etc

Edited by gazzac
add significatin PLC
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  • 3 months later...

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