Question Combining two WiFi routers

[IndyJaws]

AnandTech friends, need some help...been away from IT too long and can’t remember the right way to set up. Have a new AT&T wireless router on main floor. Other Asus router is upstairs in office, connected to AT&T router via dedicated WAP (LAN from AT&T to WAN input on Asus; will be running wired Ethernet soon for more stable bandwidth). Currently both are different SSID. Because almost all my devices are using the SSID of the Asus router, I’d like to rename the AT&T router to the same SSID and password. That way, I’ll have solid wireless coverage around the house. Both are dual band 802.11ac.

Questions:
1) What mode would I need to put the Asus router in to make this work? Bridge, Repeater, WAP?
2) I have a home server with a static IP connected to the Asus (via Ethernet). Will I need to do anything else to make it work?

Thanks in advance!

 

[ch33zw1z]

Well, you want to configure the second router as a WAP, just Google "router as WAP" and you will find tutorials.

But, that consumer grade gear won't provide session handoffs between WAP's (main router and second router), so while you can join either WAP, you won't go between them without dropping the connection.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, if you want "Seamless roaming / hand-off between WAPs, either invest in Cisco enterprise gear ($$$!), or Ubiquity Unifi WAPs, for which you'll also need to run a "controller" software on your LAN to control hand-offs. Or get some Google Mesh Wifi gear, that supposedly works pretty decently too.

I tried using Asus AiMesh between like 4 nearly-identical AC68U-class routers. While it seemingly worked fairly well, it would "drop" the connection briefly between Mesh nodes. Not enough to interrupt web browsing, but woe if you were running backups over the (Mesh wifi) LAN to the NAS unit, it would interrupt the backups and error, couldn't get a solid backup using AiMesh at all. (This was on 5Ghz AC band, single-story, easily no problems with wifi coverage, in fact, probably had too much coverage for my small apt.)

So, yeah, thus far, AiMesh isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It works (mostly) for web browsing, and great speed-tests, but for longer-term transfers that can't handle being interrupted (I blame the backup software for not being "Wifi tolerant", as much as anything in this case), it doesn't work very well.

 

[JackMDS]

Using Wireless Routers (or Modem/Wireless Router) as a Switch with an Access Point -

http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html