Add 2 repeaters to a base station

[rdransf]

Hi All

Can I connect 2 or more wireless repeaters to the same wireless base station signal to extend wireless coverage?

I.e. The base station is located in the centre of the building and the signal covers the middle but not the extreme end of the building. I would like to add a repeater on each opposite sides of the signal's reach so it covers the complete building. I can’t use LAN cable and the building has different electricity supply to the 3 different part of the building so can’t use the mains to carry the signal.
Is this possible using wirless repeaters or do I have to use wireless bridge units to connect to the base station and then output with wireless access points attached to the bridge unit to extend the wirless signal?
Thanks
Rdransf

 

[bill001g]

The device you call a base station if it is a normal AP or a router has no idea what is connecting to it. It really does not know if the device is a PC or it is some other box. A repeater to a large extent appears to be a PC that just happens to have a second wireless connection in it.

The only issue that may not make this work is when you try this in a corporate environment and they are using 802.1x as part of the authentication method. This will limit the connection to a single mac address which does not work with a repeater since by design you are running multiple mac addresses through a single connection

 

[rdransf]

Hi bill001g

Its a home network and the base staion is a Billion BIPAC 7300N Wireless-N ADSL (Dual WAN) Modem Router
and the 2 repeaters are D-link DAP-1360 access ponts set with repeating mode.

So am I correct in assuming from your post that the routers wirless signal can only be repeated (or used) by one repeater at a time?
The repeaters has different mac addresses, can I not just change the ip address of each repeater so they dont conflict?
How about bridge mode, is that limited too?

Thanks
rdransf

 

[bill001g]

No it will work just fine in your environment. Each repeater will authenticate with its own mac and as you say its own IP. The IP are only used for administration. The repeater by default runs in bridge mode.

The repeaters are stupid they will blindly take traffic and repeat it. They run at the same time.

Very technically your main router can only talk to one device at a time no matter if it is a PC or a router but this is all hidden from the end users and it "appears" that they can all talk at once. You can ignore this.

Your largest issue with running 2 repeaters is keeping the wireless channels from interfering and solving the issue of how you want a PC that can see all the devices to select the "best" connection. This is pretty much just a more complex version of the same problems you have with a single repeater

 

[rdransf]

Not sure I know what you mean about the interferance?

Can I not just call the 1st repeater the same name as the billion and use the same wirless channel (say: home on ch6), then call the 2nd repeater a different name using the same channel (say: home2 on ch6)? Do the repeaters not need to be on the same channel as the billion for them to repeat the signal?

As you can see i am new to this networking lark so keep it simple and your help is much appreciated.

Thanks
rdransf

 

[eibgrad]

Seems to me this has become overly complex. The simple answer is yes, you can repeat the wireless router's AP using these repeaters, either from the same wireless router, or even repeat the repeater's wireless signal (i.e., chain them, in series). It will just work.

Like all universal repeaters, you won’t be able to control/alter the freq/channel of the repeater’s wireless AP since it must necessarily use the same freq/channel as the wireless AP it’s repeating. IOW, once the wireless router is using say channel 6 of the 2.4GHz freq., *all* the repeaters will use the same freq/channel for their APs as well. That’s just the way it works.

And yes, because wireless is half-duplex, your bandwidth is potentially halved w/ each additional wireless hop. So only use repeaters were absolutely necessary, esp. if you’re using them for local file transfers where the bandwidth limitations would have their greatest impact (for internet access, not nearly as much).

Btw, I checked the manual for these repeaters, and just as an aside, I was impressed with how well and clearly they illustrated and described the various wireless configurations. Way better than usual, bravo to D-Link.

http://residential.telkom.co.za/equipment-devices/accessories/d-link/downloads/manual.pdf

 

[rdransf]

Thanks All