repeater vs. AP?

[robphelan]

my cable modem is at the far front corner of our 1 story house - i bought a diamondback repeater and put near the middle of the house. it works mostly great and provides coverage to most of the other half of the house... no real complaints other than it's a little spotty once you get outside.

But, i was wondering if an access point would work better? pretty much the whole house has cat5 wired - all the wired connections run to a switch which is then connected to my router .

would an AP be a better solution to provide coverage to the other half of the house/outside? what are the benefits of an AP vs repeater?

I know that bandwidth is basically cut in half with the repeater.. does the AP have similar drawbacks?

thanks for your input.
rp

 

[gus6464]

An AP will always work better than a repeater. A repeater can't push anywhere near the amount of bandwidth a dedicated AP can. AP's with wired uplinks do not have reduced bandwidth. I went from wireless routers to UniFi APs and will never go back.

 

[JackMDS]

would an AP be a better solution to provide coverage to the other half of the house/outside? what are the benefits of an AP vs repeater?


rp

Not Just better MUCH Better.

 

[PliotronX]

Yup, when I have repeater mode enabled bandwidth chops down to a point where HD streaming is not possible. Do what you can to avoid using repeaters. The only drawback to multiple AP's is that if you're using a mobile device sometimes it will select the slower AP and hold onto it even when you keep re-associating with the stronger signal.

 

[smitbret]

my cable modem is at the far front corner of our 1 story house - i bought a diamondback repeater and put near the middle of the house. it works mostly great and provides coverage to most of the other half of the house... no real complaints other than it's a little spotty once you get outside.

But, i was wondering if an access point would work better? pretty much the whole house has cat5 wired - all the wired connections run to a switch which is then connected to my router .

would an AP be a better solution to provide coverage to the other half of the house/outside? what are the benefits of an AP vs repeater?

I know that bandwidth is basically cut in half with the repeater.. does the AP have similar drawbacks?

thanks for your input.
rp

Just get a couple of refurb NetGear WNDR3400 routers and set them up as APs at each end of the house. Bang, you are done for about $70 and should have great coverage with your full speed at all the locations.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122461

 

[boomerang]

I friend has a similar situation and I am his "go-to" guy for help. Unfortunately, for about the last three years, my attentions were pretty much unable to be on anything computer related so I am rusty.

Can an AP be used to connect wirelessly to a router or would the wireless connection relegate it to functioning as a repeater? He's got a tough situation with a computer room that is virtually impossible to run wires to and the modem and router are in the main house.

I think my question has already been answered in this thread - just making sure.

 

[smitbret]

I friend has a similar situation and I am his "go-to" guy for help. Unfortunately, for about the last three years, my attentions were pretty much unable to be on anything computer related so I am rusty.

Can an AP be used to connect wirelessly to a router or would the wireless connection relegate it to functioning as a repeater? He's got a tough situation with a computer room that is virtually impossible to run wires to and the modem and router are in the main house.

I think my question has already been answered in this thread - just making sure.

I think the device you are asking for is a Bridge, which is kind of like an AP in reverse.

An Access Point is wired to a router and broadcasts a wireless signal that wireless clients like phones, laptops, tablets connect to. If there's ports available, you can plug into it with a hardwire, too. Think of them as extension cords for the connection to the router.

Bridge does the opposite, it picks up the wireless signal from the router or AP and distributes it via a wired ethernet connection to the devices.

You can get a dedicated bridge (a little more expensive but a lot simpler). Many routers offer a bridging option/setting. Additionally, any router that takes DD-WRT can act as a bridge if the stock firmware doesn't. The same device I recommended as an AP earlier in the thread can be flashed to the DD-WRT firmware and be used as the wireless bridge.

The wired connection will be limited by the strength of your wireless signal between the bridge and the router/AP. A lot of people don't like bridging because it is essentially mating 2 LANs, wirelessly, into 1 network and can be tricky. I use it for connecting different floors of homes when running cable between floors isn't practical.

 

[boomerang]

Thanks, I follow what you're saying. I had set up a scenario like this many years ago at a friends using two Netgear routers that (knock on wood) is still functioning. The bridge at his shop uses the IP of the router in the house as a gateway. Two networks, one internet connection. He has wired and wireless in the shop and wired and wireless in the house. The router and the router configured as a bridge connect wirelessly.

His internet in the shop is slow though and I never knew if it was attributable to the distance between the two devices or if it was the nature of the beast. It came to pass that he had to run a new coax line out to the shop (I had him run RG11 because of the distance, aver 250') and I talked him into running CAT cable too. He did it, but I can't get him to connect it for reasons known only to him. He can be hard-headed sometimes. He raves about how good the TV is now, but won't connect the CAT cable.

 

[JackMDS]

A real Repeater should have two radios, one for receive and one for transmitting further.

The Entry level sub $200 do not have two radios.

An inexpensive way to do Repeating is to buy two inexpensive Wireless Router that can be flashed with DD-WRT/Tomato. Configure one as a Client Bridge and the other as an Access Point and connect the two LAN to LAN port via short wire.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Client_Bridged


Using Access Points or Wireless Cable/DSL Routers as a Switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

 

[smitbret]

A real Repeater should have two radios, one for receive and one for transmitting further.

The Entry level sub $200 do not have two radios.

An inexpensive way to do Repeating is to buy two inexpensive Wireless Router that can be flashed with DD-WRT/Tomato. Configure one as a Client Bridge and the other as an Access Point and connect the two LAN to LAN port via short wire.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Client_Bridged


Using Access Points or Wireless Cable/DSL Routers as a Switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

That is brilliant. I want to set it up just to try it out. Repeater without losing the bandwidth.

 

[gus6464]

Just get a couple of refurb NetGear WNDR3400 routers and set them up as APs at each end of the house. Bang, you are done for about $70 and should have great coverage with your full speed at all the locations.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122461

When you set them up as AP's do they function as real AP's where they will seamlessly handshake between units?

 

[smitbret]

When you set them up as AP's do they function as real AP's where they will seamlessly handshake between units?

I've never used 2 of those together, but I used 1 with my D-Link router and the handoffs between those 2 were seamless.

 

[robphelan]

thanks for the great info.. i'm picking up an AP and ditching the repeater.

although, I do have to admit that the repeater did work well while I was using it. I could stream netflix at the opposite end of the house because of it.

 

[gus6464]

thanks for the great info.. i'm picking up an AP and ditching the repeater.

although, I do have to admit that the repeater did work well while I was using it. I could stream netflix at the opposite end of the house because of it.

If you only care about N and single band this is a good deal:

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Netwo.../dp/B005EORRBW

3x of those will cover a huge area and they are rock solid. In the year I've had them they have yet to need a reboot.