Networking help... (AP, bridge, or repeater)

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Renegade_09

n00b
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
Messages
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I have a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND Router on the top floor as my main router. What I want to do is extend the wireless connection with the ASUS RT-N12 down to my basement two floors down. I have no way of connecting the TP-Link with the Asus router. I just want the router in the basement so I can hardwire two computers to it and connect to it wireless with my PS3 down in the basement. I'm not sure what's the difference between an access point, bridge, or repeater but I want to know if this is possible.

Wired : -------
Wireless : >>>>

Modem-----TL-WR1043ND-----Main-PC (TOP FLOOR)
|
<<<<Wireless>>>>
|
ASUS RT-N12-----PC-2 (BASEMENT)
| -----PC-3
|
<<<<PS3>>>>>

U37FJ.jpg
 
This is possible if the ASUS can have dd-wrt, openwrt or tomato installed on it. Then you can use it as a wireless bridge.

I'm not sure if those firmwares allow you to use it as a bridge and also serve wireless clients on the same device.

But that is where I would start. Check out DD-WRT
 
Renegade_09 said:
I'm not sure what's the difference between an access point, bridge, or repeater
Click to expand...

Basically, an access point is a wired-to-wireless adapter. Most broadband routers (like your TP-Link) consist of a NAT router (converts between all your private IPs on the LAN to the one public IP on the internet connection), a wired switch (gives you multiple ports for your LAN), and an access point (gives you WiFi on your LAN).

A client bridge is essentially a wireless-to-wired adapter. In your diagram, the N12 would be acting as a client bridge to connect your wired PCs to the wireless network. The "gaming adapters" that let you use your console's LAN port with a WiFi network would also be considered client bridges.

A repeater simply repeats a WiFi connection. It sits near the edge of your router's range and extends the coverage out further by repeating what the router sends out. It's sort of a stepping stone to get more range. The N12 would be acting as a repeater for your PS3.


There are a few drawbacks to what you're wanting to do. I believe you could configure DD-WRT to act as both a client bridge for the PCs and as a repeater for the PS3 - my cousin configured his DD-WRT router to use a WiFi link as his internet connection, as well as having a separate WiFi network for his LAN. However, WiFi radios are half-duplex, so using one as a repeater inherently cuts your bandwidth in half (basically half of the connection is used to talk to the router, and half to the WiFi client). I'm not sure if having the client bridge in there would also cut into it more or not.

Even if the WiFi link was halved like that, it's probably still faster than your internet connection. However, keep in mind that the two PCs and the PS3 would all be sharing that one link up to the router and main PC. With overhead, you generally get about half of the WiFi connection's bandwidth being usable for data. That means ~75Mbps usable on a 150Mbps connection. Cut that in half again with the repeater, and you're down to 37Mbps. Split that between the three devices in the basement, and you're at ~12Mbps. That comes out to about 1.5MBps if you're trying to use all three at the same time. Even if you had a 300Mbps WiFi link between the two, you're still only looking at 24Mbps (3MBps) for each device in the basement.

That may be the only option in your situation, but if there's any way you can run a single cable between the two routers, you'd be much better off. The N12's ports are only 100Mbps so you'd be limited to that for an uplink to the main router, but you wouldn't be limiting your WiFi so much and it would be much easier to configure. Your uplink between the routers would also be more stable, being wired rather than wireless.
 
Thanks for explaining that.
I'm reading some reviews on Amazon.com and found this in one of the reviews

"There's a switch on the back that allows you to select access point mode, standard router mode, or bridge/repeater mode.

Looks like this router can do it all and I guess it can't hurt to try it out and see if I can make a better connection. BTW my TP-Link TL-WR1043ND has great range even in the basement. I get 4 bars and sometimes full bar. I was just thinking that another router would make the connection more stable and consistent than using a Wireless N USB dongles for both computers in the basement. I know that having two routers hard wired would be best but that's something I can't do.
 
If you use cable service you should be fine using MoCa, but if you have satellite it won't work.
 
I was wondering does anyone know of a windows program that test your lan network speed and dropouts. I want to test how reliable the powerline device is compared to my wireless N.
 
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