Adding Wired AP's with Comcast Router

[spepi]

I have to help the owner of my company add Wi-Fi to his new house. The house is over 7000 Sq. Feet. 3 levels plus basement. All Rooms are wired with Cat 5, and comcast will be located in basement. What do I need to do to add AP's in the house to get Wi-Fi to reach those hard to reach areas? I have FIOS actiontec router and was playing with the Cisco WAP300N with some luck but I dont have a house wired with cat5, so I couldnt get a true test. I have 4 Cisco WAP300N's and 4 HP M200N APs on standby in case the Ciscos dont want to play nice. Do I need to do anything on the Comcast router like disable Wi-Fi? Its a new install, so this should be new hardware from Comcast. Thanks in advance.

 

[RealBeast]

That's an easy one for a change -- most folks want to add APs without an Ethernet cable.

If he has that big of a house he can afford to add a few APs. While I would plan three total wireless APs including the router (you could add a fourth if needed and there is not significant overlap -- one in the basement and one on the first floor near the most heavy use and probably on the top floor near the other end, you may have to move them depending on the construction materials and locations.

Once you configure the APs, you can move them around without re-configuring and then walk around test with a laptop running something simple like inSSIDer from HERE.

Since you will use dual band APs you may need to help him allocate devices to frequencies if he has a lot of bandwidth intensive users, hopefully most of those will be wired.

 

[spepi]

So by rights, I shouldnt have to do anything with the existing Comcast router. All computers but 1 will be Wi-Fi. I will have that one on a small hub, so i think I can skip the AP in the office, but never being there, who knows. I dont see heavy users as its himself, wife and 2 year old. But also wanting plenty of coverage throughout the house. I am leaning towards the HP AP's considering they have lifetime warranty, and look nicer than the black cisco AP.

 

[RealBeast]

I would not recommend that all computer be wireless if any are desktop machines since you already have cables installed.

You don't have to do anything with the existing router other than to enter the APs with static addresses.

 

[spepi]

Thanks Beast. He will have 1 desktop, wired, which will be good if I need to connect remotely with Bomgar. All the rest of the devices will be laptop, iPad, Android devices.