Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

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chalmers
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Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by chalmers » Mon Jan 06, 2014 9:07 pm

I've got my Aliant wireless modem in the basement, and my office is on the exact opposite end of my house (top floor, back room).
I've purchased a Powerline Adapter to get an ethernet connection to it, but would ideally extend the wifi to that area as well, to help extend it for other devices (phone, tablets, etc). I *thought* I could set up a second router as an AP (access point), with the exact same info as the Aliant modem (SSID, pw, channel), but for some reason it's not working (won't get on the internet).

Powerline: http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/deta ... -PA2010KIT" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Routers I have in hand, been trying to get to work:
http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/deta ... =TL-WR702N" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.zyxel.com/us/en/products_ser ... .shtml?t=p" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


I can get it to work like an independent wifi router, but I'm trying to emulate what I see at big hotels: lots of APs (I believe, but perhaps that's my problem) with the same SSID, so you can switch seamlessly between them (ie, tablet in the basement or in the bedroom, won't have any problems).

Thanks for any help you guys can give. I thought I knew a thing or two about networking, but I can't get this sorted out. Maybe the two routers I have are not powerful enough, though they both say they support AP mode...

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by Keith » Mon Jan 06, 2014 9:15 pm

Are you trying to extend the wireless signal off the Aliant wireless modem with another router? What is the make\model of the Wireless modem?
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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by chalmers » Mon Jan 06, 2014 9:21 pm

I want to use a second router to mimic the wifi settings of the first, so that transition between the two (depending on location in the house) is seamless. Router#2 won't be connecting via wifi to Router#1, just mimicking the settings.

As above, I have two routers I've tried to use, to no success: TP-Link TL-WR702N and ZyXel MWR102. Both say they can operate in AP mode, which I think is what I want to do. But no luck.

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by Keith » Mon Jan 06, 2014 9:36 pm

not all modems or routers are compatible to accept being a host of a AP. What is your router model, I can see what I can dig up.
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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by AllanMar » Mon Jan 06, 2014 9:55 pm

Make sure you turn off Routing (set to AP mode or something similar, varys by MFG). and also turn off the DHCP server on the 2nd router.

If your main router (Aliant) is 192.168.0.1 manually configure the second router for 192.168.0.2 for example. Make sure your not plugging the ethernet connection in to the WAN (where the internet would normally connect) but rather plug it in to one of the regular LAN ports (some routers can configure the WAN port to act as a LAN, but you have to enable it).

Make sure you use all the same wifi settings, but choose a different channel, otherwise it can have the opposite effect (hurt wifi by too much traffic on the same channel). If you have alot of wifi in your area it can help to download a program that will slow you what channel everyone else is using so that you can pick the least used.

It's hard to be more specific as I haven't seen what the configuration menus look like.

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by Keith » Mon Jan 06, 2014 10:00 pm

Allan, he's trying to set these up wirelessly as an extender from what I'm reading. 2nd router isn't plugged into the modem and trying to extend the initial signal throughout his house. The Aliant modem may not be compatible with this device or type of setup. was going to look up the modem to see if it supported extenders.
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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by AllanMar » Mon Jan 06, 2014 10:06 pm

I misunderstood I assumed he was using the powerline adapter to provide a wired connection to the router, which would then extend the wifi (since he mentioned AP mode). I find this works alot better then wifi only extenders.

Normally I find the best way is to get a regular 4 port router, then you get 3 wired connections in the office plus wifi range is improved.

The TP-Link router supports repeater mode if that's the case, but it is the most temperamental way (with different mfg routers).

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by NASH » Mon Jan 06, 2014 10:08 pm

I think you need to setup up the 2nd router as a repeater, the main router is the access point.

Have a boo at the tut below for your TPLink....

http://www.tp-linkru.com/article/?faqid=376" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by canuck » Mon Jan 06, 2014 10:14 pm

I have my Aliant FibreOP wireless router in my basement as well. What I did to extend wireless signal to all three floors of my house and backyard is purchased used wireless routers, installed dd-wrt on them, and configured them as repeater bridges. Other than my Bell Aliant wireless router, I have 3 other wireless routers running dd-wrt and configured as repeater bridges. I can be anywhere in my house or out on my deck and get perfect signal strength. Worth looking at, Chris.

http://www.dd-wrt.ca/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by canuck » Mon Jan 06, 2014 10:16 pm

Sorry, missed the part that you already have a second router. Like Nash mentioned, you'll want to set it up as a repeater.

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by mumblecrunch » Mon Jan 06, 2014 10:45 pm

Do not use "repeater mode" or "extend wireless network" or "WDS" or any other setting that involves doing your backhaul to router #1 over wireless. Even if you can get a decent backhaul from one to the other (and you probably can't), you're giving up some portion of your available wireless bandwidth for the backhaul. At both ends. It's not worth the heartache. Really. I'm sure it works for some people. But you've already said you have trouble getting a wireless signal where you're putting this router. That means that router #2 is going to have trouble too. And then you're going to try to serve other devices from a crappy connection? Don't do it.
I've purchased a Powerline Adapter to get an ethernet connection to it, but would ideally extend the wifi to that area as well, to help extend it for other devices (phone, tablets, etc). I *thought* I could set up a second router as an AP (access point), with the exact same info as the Aliant modem (SSID, pw, channel), but for some reason it's not working (won't get on the internet).
Look ho! There is Ethernet to the second router via the Powerline adapter. So you can bridge over wires. Good. Note that the below assumes that the powerline adapter is just providing a bridge from router #2 to the Aliant router and that it's not doing any kind of routing or DHCP or anything like that. Ideally the powerline stuff doesn't even get its own IP address.

Just about any router can do "AP Mode", it's a matter of how easy it is to accomplish the feat.

The no-fail ghetto method is something like:
- unplug router #2 from any other networks and reset it to factory defaults
- plug a computer into one of the LAN ports and connect to the router by following the manufacturer's instructions
- disable the DHCP server on the LAN side of the router
- disable the WAN port if it lets you (or set it to Static configuration and don't actually configure it)
- configure the wireless to your liking (same as your Aliant router's settings in terms of SSIDs and associated passwords)
- unplug your computer from router #2
- cover up the WAN port on router #2 with tape. Or stuff it with cotton balls and cover it with tape. Or put a big label on the router with an arrow pointing at the LAN port that says, "DO NOT USE THIS PORT. EVER. FOR ANYTHING. REALLY."
- plug one of the LAN ports on router #2 into the feed from the powerline adapter
- VIOLA. Any device plugged into another LAN port on router #2 will be bridged to the Aliant router (test this first!!). Any device plugged accessing router #2 wirelessly will be bridged to the Aliant router.

Yes, you lose a port this way (the WAN port). But unless there's some kind of secret sauce in your router #2 this should work.

If the router supports a TRUE "AP Mode", then putting it in that mode should do the following automagically:
- disable the DHCP server on the LAN side so that LAN devices don't get an IP from it
- enable a DHCP client on the WAN port so that the router will get an address from the upstream Aliant router
- disable any other settings that might interfere

If this works, you get your WAN port back because it's your uplink. I know ASUS routers do this fine and so does anything running Tomato/TomatoUSB/TomatoUSB Variants. I do not know about TPLink or Zyxel nor do I care to (I've already determined that filling my brain with painful router configuration information does nothing to push out painful childhood memories).

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by chalmers » Mon Jan 06, 2014 11:02 pm

Keith: There is an ethernet cable running between the Aliant modem and the second router (hence my use of the Powerline adapters).

Allan: Thanks for the suggestion, I've set the 2nd router IP to 192.168.2.2 (Aliant is 2.1). I did/do have DHCP on the 2nd router off, as I knew I wanted the Aliant to take of all that. And I've changed channels. But perhaps the biggest issue was the WAN/LAN port. The ZyXel has two ports: WAN and LAN, and I was using the WAN one. I figured because the router was taking the data from the port and broadcasting it, it should be in the WAN port, and if it was acting like a bridge, it would be in the LAN port.

Will spend a few minutes and test it out, thanks for the help, gents!

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by chalmers » Mon Jan 06, 2014 11:07 pm

Oh WOW, lots of people weighed in since I last looked at 9:01pm (also trying to deal with leaking basement...). Thanks guys! :)

Allan and Aaron were right on: wired connection from router#1 to router#2 over Powerline (if you don't know what it is, it's a box that lets you send data over the internal wiring in your house, pretty nifty!). I had previously tried the repeater setup, and it wasn't doing the trick for me, so I bought the Powerline adapters.

Probably the issue was WAN instead of LAN port, as the ZyXel does have an AP mode that I'd enabled. I'm not worried at all about losing that port.

Thanks for the info Aaron, confirms that I was on the right track with Allan's suggestions.

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by chalmers » Tue Jan 07, 2014 12:08 am

Full bars in my office upstairs, speed is comparable to wifi on router#1.
Thanks again for the assistance, everyone!

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by james11 » Thu Jun 02, 2016 3:11 pm

Did someone try a signal booster for Bell Aliant?

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Re: Help Needed: Setting up an Wifi Access Point at home

Post by james11 » Sun Jun 05, 2016 8:16 pm

Hi! I found out about this site and I heard that they are very good. I order one yesterday, I hope that they can help me!
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Reason: spam-looking link removed - chalmers

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