Help me! Am I doing something wrong?

[allinwonder]

I live in a student co-op house and they want to kick me out for using my own wireless router which I refuse to give up.

The house wireless in my room sucks. I have about five devices that need to be connected to the wireless network (including one wired connection if I use my own router).

What I do is connecting the router to the wired internet outlet in my room, which connects to one of the house router. I use my router as router, not switch or AP.

They think that me using my own router "messes up the internet across the house", and is "uncooperative" (grounds for kicking me out).

My argument is that by using an additional router, the traffic of multiple wireless devices that were connected to the house router is now funneled through a wired connection, which has higher bandwidth and does not emit any wireless signal. This not only frees up the limited wireless capacity a consumer grade router can handle, it also frees up the stress of router's computing power by reducing routing packets for five devices into one, without any increase in total internet traffic (those devices were connected anyway).

Signal interference is a non-issue, because 2.4Ghz has 11 channels, and virtually all routers nowadays can automatically select channels that are not used. So in the end I'm not only not hurting other people, I'm actually helping them at my own expense.

My anandtech friends, who is right who is wrong?

Thanks!

 

[jimpz]

Doesn't matter who's right & who's wrong, their house, their rules.
You can't win.
(This rule is also used in many(most) school 'living quarters'.

 

[nsafreak]

Actually they're correct. If you're using your router as a router then it is also acting as a DHCP server and handing out its own pool of IP addresses. So whenever a device connects to the network, namely the wired one, it's going to quite likely have issues obtaining an IP address from the correct router. Even if you turn off the DHCP server there are other issues introduced by having a pair of routers on the network having to do with double NAT, routing, and various other network based issues. Insofar as the interference goes it's true that 2.4 GHz has 11 channels but the truth is that it really only has 3 effective channels. All of the other channels are so close together that they effectively overlap. If there are any other wireless networks nearby then you've increased the problem even more. I would recommend that since your problem is that wifi is weak in your room to switch the router to AP mode and set it to the same SSID, password & channel as the main router. That way there's consistency through the house and there shouldn't be any issues caused by it. Truth be told there's no reason in this case to have multiple routers on one network. It can be done, but it's typically not done in this kind of enviroment.

 

[matricks]

It's not all that clear, so in summary and question: You have a wired connection from your own router to the house network. Your devices are connected by wire to your own router. Your own router has its wireless radio(s) disabled, i.e. you are not broadcasting an SSID and you are not using it as a wireless client. Your router has one IP address in the house network, and your own devices have IP addresses internal to your own network (an example would be useful, i.e. what address does a computer have when connected to the house network, and what address does it have when connected to your network). Is all of this correct?

As mentioned, wireless channels overlap, see List_of_WLAN_channels#2.4 GHz (802.11b/g/n) for visual explanation. There are only three channels that don't interfere with each other, not eleven/thirteen. (Channel 14 doesn't count, as it's 802.11b only.)

If the summary in my first paragraph is 100% correct, and your router is correctly set to not respond to DHCP requests from its WAN (the house network), and in general filters traffic to prevent traffic internal to one network leaking to the other, I would say that you are helping out by lowering the total amount of wireless traffic. You are doing double NAT, but that only hurts yourself if the setup is like described and works correctly, so that isn't an issue. Unless this house internal network has more than 16 million clients I don't see how the reduced number of IP addresses matter.

In the end that doesn't matter though, as jimpz is also right, no matter how sad that truth is. Believe me, I know the pain of being restricted to wireless access.

 

[smakme7757]

Actually they're correct. If you're using your router as a router then it is also acting as a DHCP server and handing out its own pool of IP addresses. So whenever a device connects to the network, namely the wired one, it's going to quite likely have issues obtaining an IP address from the correct router.....SNIP....

Actually that's not true.

If he has it setup as a router he will terminate the Home LAN on the WAN interface of his Router. Then he creates a new network behind that WAN port on the switch ports and Wifi interface on the router with NAT.

So if configured correctly he creates his own private network behind the Home owners network.So his DHCP server will only serve clients on his side of the network. DHCP isn't designed to server clients on the Internet, so no routers are ever configured to do that. I.e serve DHCP on the WAN interface.

His Router would simply take a DHCP assigned IP from the Home Router and that will be his IP on the WAN interface (It might change, but it doesn't matter). Then he creates a new network on the inside on a different subnet.

So the network will look like:

INTERNET > Home Network (192.168.1.0) > Private Network (192.168.2.0)

As to who is right or wrong, well i don't know. The problem with networking is it's very hard for people to understand. It's magic to them. I work with extremely large datacenter networks everyday and i still have family members who would rather call out a "Professional" to setup their wireless router....

 

[ChippyUK]

Why not compromise and get a wireless AP (or set your router to be a bridge) and put it somewhere in the hall for all to use? Surely that beats being kicked out.

 

[xSauronx]

Why not compromise and get a wireless AP (or set your router to be a bridge) and put it somewhere in the hall for all to use? Surely that beats being kicked out.

why not just set his wifi router to act as a bridge and re-broadcast the same wifi ssi with the same password so they dont know its there and everyone just gets better wifi.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I live in a student co-op house and they want to kick me out for using my own wireless router which I refuse to give up.

The house wireless in my room sucks. I have about five devices that need to be connected to the wireless network (including one wired connection if I use my own router).

What I do is connecting the router to the wired internet outlet in my room, which connects to one of the house router. I use my router as router, not switch or AP.

They think that me using my own router "messes up the internet across the house", and is "uncooperative" (grounds for kicking me out).

My argument is that by using an additional router, the traffic of multiple wireless devices that were connected to the house router is now funneled through a wired connection, which has higher bandwidth and does not emit any wireless signal. This not only frees up the limited wireless capacity a consumer grade router can handle, it also frees up the stress of router's computing power by reducing routing packets for five devices into one, without any increase in total internet traffic (those devices were connected anyway).

Signal interference is a non-issue, because 2.4Ghz has 11 channels, and virtually all routers nowadays can automatically select channels that are not used. So in the end I'm not only not hurting other people, I'm actually helping them at my own expense.

My anandtech friends, who is right who is wrong?

Thanks!

Firstly, it has 11 channels but only 3 that dont overlap (1,6,9) secondly, their house and their rules, sucks but thats the way it goes.

 

[brshoemak]

why not just set his wifi router to act as a bridge and re-broadcast the same wifi ssi with the same password so they dont know its there and everyone just gets better wifi.

Yep, that will work. However, be prepared to be kicked out if you are found out. As was stated before: "Their house, their rules" - so accept the risks along with the reward.

 

[allinwonder]

OK. I decided to give them a big middle finger.

I changed the router's host name to "Canon-Printer", changed the SSID to "Canon-Printer" and unchecked the SSID broadcasting.

People who think what I'm doing is wrong are probably too incompetent to search for hidden SSID. Even if they can find it, I can say it's just a wireless printer that acts like an AP.

By the way, it's a co-op so it's not "their house".

 

[JackMDS]

Too many inappropriate remarks.

Thread Closed.


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