Talk about Laptops

Dilemma faced quite often by people using Wireless in their homes or offices is, how they are unable to get a good signal at certain areas in their premises. I’ll try to explain how you can extend the range of your wireless by not using a repeater, but by simple using any 2 wireless routers. The only shortcoming is that the connection between the two devices is through ordinary LAN CAT5/6 cable, and not wireless. But once done, this is a trouble free, cost effective solution that can extend the range of your wireless to a practical 300 feet at least (length of good quality, single LAN wire between 2 points). Wireless solutions to repeating your signal are also there, but that can mean having to compromise on a lower WEP security instead of WPA, and even much lower range if there are many obstacles in the path. Anyway, out of the scope of this article, I’ll head to the main point.

This post assumes that you’re already using a wireless router & are happy with everything, except for the fact that you want to extend its range. Also, you should know how to access the interface of your routers .. so basic understanding of how these things work is necessary.

We’ll call the router, that is connected to the internet, as the primary router. You do not have to touch any settings for the primary router. Good thing in case even if things go wrong, your main settings always remain intact. The second router that is going to connect to the primary router to extend the range, is going to be referred as the secondary router. First, factory reset the secondary router. Connect it using a LAN wire to any computer & open the admin area.

Once in admin area, the only changes you’re going to make is that you have to turn off the DHCP server, and change the IP of the router (for instance if first, you opened using 192.168.0.1) to something that falls inside the IP range of the primary router (e.g. 192.168.2.2, if your primary router range is set to 192.168.2.2 till 192.168.2.199). You can have any SSID/WPA setting on the secondary router that you want. Once this is done, unplug, & using a LAN wire, connect any one of the 4 LAN ports of primary router to any one of the 4 LAN ports on the secondary router. Note that no UPLINK/WAN port of secondary is going to be used. Once this is done, restart the whole setup.

Now you should be able to see both the SSID in their respective areas. Connect to either & you should’ve internet access on either of the routers.