Help with extending wireless range with a wireless access point

[rallycobra]

I have a Netgear N600 WNDR3700 wireless gigabit router that is my primary home network device. It is mounted in a suboptimal location and I would like to extend the wireless range. My house is wired with Ethernet, and I figured I would take one of my old routers (Linksys and Buffalo with dd-wrt firmware) and use one as a wireless access point.

I had no trouble configuring the router as a WAP by disabling DHCP and hooking it to the Ethernet port in a far corner of the house. I used the same password and SSID and everything works. The only problem is that my wireless devices still get enough of a signal out of the N600 they don't switch over to the Buffalo Router WAP.

How do people get devices to switch to the strongest device? Should I create a separate SSID for the WAP like homenetwork2? That might force devices to switch over. I'm primarily using windows laptops, iphones and ipads.

Thanks in advance for your assistance!

 

[JackMDS]

Stay with the same SSID and security but put each Wireless AP on a different channel. 1, 11, and 6 are usually the best choice.

Be aware that Entry level Wireless is Not design for seamless roaming.

If seamless roaming is very important to you spend more money and buy professional Wireless gear.

 

[rallycobra]

Thanks for the reply. If I want to get professional wireless gear, what do I look for? Sounds like overkill though.


Does anyone make a wireless access point with a minimum link speed or poor signal disconnect? If I could configure the WAP to kick someone off with a low speed connection, that may be an inexpensive solution, since they would then get kicked back to the main router.

 

[lif_andi]

I'm no expert but as far as I know (which isn't a great deal) you can only restrict access from devices that are using a different 802.11 standard. As 802.11n is the fastest you could make everything exclusive to n since any machine connecting through another standard a/b/g would bring the whole network to that standard, thus slowing it down. I don't know of any way to block devices based on their performance. You can also try replacing the antenna with a better one to extend your range. Here are some helpful words: http://www.pcworld.com/article/261495/how_to_extend_your_wi_fi_network.html

About the channels, if you're in Europe the non-overlapping channels used are 1, 6, 13.