adding repeaters to a wireless network.

[Ivor]

I figured this was a s good a place to ask as any and better than most.

I'm looking to add some wireless repeaters to an existing UPC wireless network. I do have the house CAT5 cabled but we all use wireless these days for phones or laptops - my point is I do have hard wired options too.

I have 2 old modems, an Eircom Zyxel and a Vodafone "Home Gateway" 556a, I also have a netgear wall wart type repeater. I'm told the old modems will work as repeaters.

As I have cable running to a TV in one room I was going to insert one of the above modems 'in line' and take a wifi signal from that.

I have the main PC at the very top of the house so same approach again, add a wireless modem....

The extension at the back of the house has RSJs so thinking the Netgear is best there.

Anyway thats the physical side of my plan but are there issues with IP or MAC addresses? With retaining one network rather than a few (a nightmare) or something I haven't even thought of yet?

[Ivor]

pointers to good online guides would be welcome too... Google was very little help

[Fran]

Turn off ADSL on the repeater modems and set them to get DHCP automatically... shouldn't be much more than that. You will have one pain though, you'll have to connect to whichever router you want. In other words, you won't ahve just one wireless network called "feck off this is Ivors wifi" but 3 called netgear, zyxel and UPC...

[Ivor]

Ok sound. Much obliged

You will have one pain though, you'll have to connect to whichever router you want. In other words, you won't have just one wireless network called "feck off this is Ivors wifi" but 3 called netgear, zyxel and UPC...

MMM that's something I was hoping to avoid....

[Ivor]

Ok sound. Much obliged

You will have one pain though, you'll have to connect to whichever router you want. In other words, you won't have just one wireless network called "feck off this is Ivors wifi" but 3 called netgear, zyxel and UPC...

MMM that's something I was hoping to avoid....

although if a phone or laptop has that network in it's list it will do that automatically no? Will there be a password for each one? As I'm typing I'm thinking there will be several passwords but still... do it once on the phone/laptop and that's it

[Fran]

yeah, the laptop or whatever will remember teh login codes, but what generally happens is that it connects by default to one router, with crap signal, and you have to connect to the nearest one etc. Grand on a laptop, but bit of a pain on the phone maybe. You can buy true repeaters that will boost the signal - and I believe they work well. They were in aldi or lidl recently and I'd maplins and pc world ahve them all the time (or ebay)

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/300Mbps-Wireless ... 486db399b6

[Ivor]

yeah, the laptop or whatever will remember teh login codes, but what generally happens is that it connects by default to one router, with crap signal, and you have to connect to the nearest one etc. Grand on a laptop, but bit of a pain on the phone maybe. You can buy true repeaters that will boost the signal - and I believe they work well. They were in aldi or lidl recently and I'd maplins and pc world ahve them all the time (or ebay)

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/300Mbps-Wireless ... 486db399b6

I have one good netgear repeater so we'll see how that goes. Thanks again.

[nige2000]

never had much fun with repeaters.....

[tony]

Sure if the house is well wired you can use switch if required and try a half decent wireless router or two to expand the wireless network.
But Fran is 100% correct on the phones/laptops etc not necessarily picking out the best signal. But no biggie to switch to the better one depending on where you are in the house.

[jaybee]

I'm in the same boat..... Apple has a elegant solution

I use one AirPort Extreme to create the "master" wireless network and multiple Apple Airport expresses connected to the AP extreme by Ethernet each set to create a roaming network......

this means one wifi network, one password and full wifi speed on every floor....

If you choose extend a wireless network on the expresses, which does the same but wirelessly, you halve your wifi speed...

My only issue is the sh!//y UPC cable modem which I can't seem to wrangle static local IPs out of