General Wireless Questions (AP vs. Router & Extending length)

[hamburglar]

Hi. Im kinda new into the wireless internet stuff and need some help.

I am connecting two desktops in two different rooms, which are quite far from each other (about 300 feet). The main computer has a linksys wireless router. The thing is that the signal cannot reach to the other desktop in the other room (my laptop in the same room did not get signal). For this situation, would I need another AP in the middle of the two computers? Or would another antennae do the work.

Also, what is the difference between an AP and a Wireless Router. Does the AP have only the ability to network the computers and not share internet connection like the Wireless Router?

Thanks for you time and input.

 

[rw120555]

This is a situation where an alternative method, such as HPNA or Homplug, might work better. HPNA cards are pretty cheap, and improving your wireless may cost a bit.

I asked a similar question a while back. When you say, "Place an AP in the midde" how would you do that? Do you happen to have an ethernet jack conveniently located there? If so, then you could probably set up multiple APs with roaming, i.e. pc connects to whatever AP is closest and strongest. But I bet you are thinking more along the lines of a relayer, and my impression is a plain old AP won't do, you need a repeater, and those are more expensive.

An antenna may be a better bet.

I beleive an AP can share your internet connection, at least they are advertised that way. It probably won't act as a dhcp server, nor will it provide some security features such as NAT. I personally would prefer a router with either built-in or external WAP.

 

[JackMDS]

Wireless Access Point (WAP) under regular configuration (I will call it ?Master?), can talk only to Wireless Client Cards, these are the cards that are installed on a computer.

Some Entry level WAPs, can be configured as a bridge, in bridge mode the WAP can talk only to another WAP that is configured as a Bridge, it can not talk to Wireless Client card.

Few WAPs can also configure as a Client card. I.e. they can act as a ?Fancy? Wireless Client Card hooked to a computer.

Entry level Wireless Cable/DSL Router, are regular Cable/DSL Routers that the WAP is already build in.

However as far as I know , all entry level Wireless Cable/DSL Routers are configured as a Master, and can interact only with Client Wireless Cards.

As a result buying Regular Cable/DSL Router and attaching a good WAP to it yields more flexible result, but cost more.

The cooperate way to solve your problem is to buy a Repeater which is an appliance (It is an expensive appliance) that can be set in the middle of the range it will connect to one part of the network, and repeats it to the other part.

There are ways to emulate a repeater by buying few good WAPs. However any type of solution will be rather expensive.

 

[hamburglar]

Thanks for your replies. I had an Intel Anypoint network, which used the phone line, but one of the cards stopped working. Also, I want to be able to use wireless along with the HPNAs if that is possible. Does anyone know if I can do that?

 

[rw120555]

Thanks for your replies. I had an Intel Anypoint network, which used the phone line, but one of the cards stopped working. Also, I want to be able to use wireless along with the HPNAs if that is possible. Does anyone know if I can do that?

I'm doing it, so the answer is, yeah, sure. HPNA carda are cheap, get them for as little as $20-$30 direct from Netgear or search for even better deals from Ebay (you don't have to get Intel, but a lot of Intel stuff is sold there; just make sure what you get is hpna 2.0, as it is much faster than 1.0). If you've been using HPNA and have been happy with it, it is certainly much cheaper to buy a new HPNA card than it is to make a wireless setup work under these conditions.

 

[rw120555]

I'll just go ahead and outline how you could combine ethernet, hpna and wireless:

Simple, convenient, but slightly more expensive solution:

Router connects to 1 or more PCs, a WAP, and an Ethernet/HPNA bridge (e.g. Netgear PE102, Linksys hpb200). Machines off in the distance connect via wireless client cards or hpna cards. Everything is one happy, seemless network. No PC needs to be on in order for other PCs to access the internet or the rest of the network. Main drawback is the cost of the HPNA bridge, perhaps $100+.

Cheaper but less convienient solution:

Router connects to one or more PCs + Wap. These constitute one network. A WinXP machine connected to the router also has a cheapie HPNA card installed. One or more machines off in the distance also have HPNA cards. The HPNA machines constitute a 2nd network. As it is, these 2 networks can't communicate with each other. So, on the machine with both ethernet and HPNA, you bridge the 2 networks. Go into network connections, select both the ethernet and HPNA connections, right click, choose Bridge connections. Now instead of 2 networks, you have one seemless network. Main adv: HPNA card is cheaper than a bridge. Main drawbacks: Bridge machine has to always be on, plus I'm not sure what other OS's besides WinXP support bridging.

You can do variations of this. Some routers have bridges and/or WAPs built in, e.g. 2wire 100w has both hpna and a wap. If you have several machines in your basement, instead of buying them all hpna cards, you could buy an HPNA/Ethernet bridge and connect it and the PCs to a switch. Those machines would then have faster communication with each other. Instead of an HPNA bridge, I think you could also get a WAP that can be configured as a client and connect it and the PCs to a switch (at least that was the untested theory in a thread last week). This might be far cheaper than buying a bunch of wireless client cards.

If you need more rationale as to why this works or details, let me know. The key thing is that you don't have to use just one approach or another. Try to use ethernet as much as possible and wireless or hpna as needed. RW

EDIT: If you have WinXP, search for help on "Using a mixed network environment" for more details.