[SOLVED] Do I need a Bridge or a Router

[Pburns]

Hello, I have a remote office in a steel shed, which I ran cat5 to from my router, 200 ft. away, for internet and have a switch installed for adding other components. Problem is my cell phone works in there, but I can't email images from my phone to my computer and a few others issues. Would I plug a Bridge to the switch to get better wifi in the shed for phone service or do I need a wifi Router? Thanks

 

[velocityg4]

You would want an Access Point. You can also use a router and put it in access point mode. Since routers are usually cheaper than an equivalent access point.

Essentially you give the router (henceforth AP) an IP address within the IP Range of your network. For example if your networks DHCP setting are 192.168.1.xxx. You could make that AP 192.168.1.200 (anywhere between 1 and 254). Just don't give it the address of your main router. Wherever it asks for the IP address of your router or gateway. Give it the IP address of your main router and use the same subnet.

Once all of that is setup. Disable DHCP on your AP. Then you reboot and plug the new AP's LAN port (not WAN) into your switch. Don't plug it in before you disable DHCP on the AP. Don't disable DHCP until you program all the IP settings. On your main router you'll want to reserve your AP's IP Address. So, it doesn't get reassigned. If you need to login to your AP to configure it. Use the IP address you assigned it in your web browser.

Now you can configure WiFi. Login to your now connected AP with the IP address you assigned it. If you give your AP the exact same SSID, Network Key and Encryption type as your main router. Your wireless devices can then connect to the best signal. Rather than you having to switch networks. These settings must be exactly the same. The most overlooked is the encryption type. If one is WPA/WPA2 TKIP+AES the other must be the same. Really, you should only be using WPA2 with AES. There are only a few old devices which only work on WPA TKIP.

 

[channelite]

I did a search and found this post. My wifi is constantly going out and my solution is to unplug and plugin again the router to reset it. The router is a Dlink Dir 655. I have two computers and another device connected via the ethernet cable ports. I want to disable the wifi on this router and buy another wifi device that would connect to the fourth ethernet port, so if the wifi goes out, it won't disrupt my other wired devices when I have to reset the wifi. I think I'm looking for a wifi bridge, but I'm not sure of the device. Any ideas or solutions? Thanks.

 

[bill001g]

I did a search and found this post. My wifi is constantly going out and my solution is to unplug and plugin again the router to reset it. The router is a Dlink Dir 655. I have two computers and another device connected via the ethernet cable ports. I want to disable the wifi on this router and buy another wifi device that would connect to the fourth ethernet port, so if the wifi goes out, it won't disrupt my other wired devices when I have to reset the wifi. I think I'm looking for a wifi bridge, but I'm not sure of the device. Any ideas or solutions? Thanks.

Did you not even read the post immediately above yours. It very clearly tells you how to accomplish this.

 

[channelite]

Did you not even read the post immediately above yours. It very clearly tells you how to accomplish this.

thanks I wasn’t sure what I needed to do.

 

[channelite]

thanks I wasn’t sure what I needed to do.

So I was able to convert my Dlink DIR-655 into an access point. I used an old Netgear WGR614v6 as the main router, turned off it's wifi. Created a port forwarding HTTP with the address of 192.168.1.50.

On the DIR-655, I turned off UPnP, disabled DHCP, created the new address 192.168.1.50 and connected the two routers via the LAN ports.

It actually was really easy to do. Now when the DIR-655 wifi is interrupted, it won't take out all my wired computers. Also I can experiment with a better access point location, for better wifi reception.