[SOLVED] Extending range of mobile WiFi hotspot.

[KM62]

I'm assisting a friend trying to improve the coverage of the WiFi at their house emanating from a Huawei E5577c mobile wifi hotspot. The device is fixed to a wall as it is hardwired to an antennae (remote location).

They have a TP-LInk router (wr841n) that I was hoping to use as an access point that receives the mobile wifi and broadcasts it elsewhere in the house but I can't seem to connect it to receive the mobile wifi signal.

Has anyone tried this kind of thing before with any success?

Thanks in advance.

 

[bill001g]

You can't run it as a AP that is connected via ethernet. You need to run it is a repeater or extender. Not all routers have that feature.

In addition the mobile hotspot has to support a feature called WDS to make this work. Many of those mobile hotspot things have limitations on the number of clients you can connect. I don't know if this is some hardware restriction or if the ISP has for some reason placed a limit.

Some versions of the wr841n support dd-wrt third party firmware. Not all do the key is what internal chips are used on different hardware revisions of that router. dd-wrt has more option and you can run the device as a wifi connected router which should get past limitation on clients. DD-wrt tends to be messy to setup.

 

[kanewolf]

I'm assisting a friend trying to improve the coverage of the WiFi at their house emanating from a Huawei E5577c mobile wifi hotspot. The device is fixed to a wall as it is hardwired to an antennae (remote location).

They have a TP-LInk router (wr841n) that I was hoping to use as an access point that receives the mobile wifi and broadcasts it elsewhere in the house but I can't seem to connect it to receive the mobile wifi signal.

Has anyone tried this kind of thing before with any success?

Thanks in advance.

I would recommend a two device approach. One a wireless bridge, that can connect to the hotspot and convert to ethernet cable. Then an AP to provide wider coverage. The Ubiquiti loco M2 or M5 (I think the Huawei supports 5Ghz) can connect to the hotspot AND will function as a router so that only a single connection is made to the hotspot -- to get around any device count limit.

 

[KM62]

You can't run it as a AP that is connected via ethernet. You need to run it is a repeater or extender. Not all routers have that feature.

In addition the mobile hotspot has to support a feature called WDS to make this work. Many of those mobile hotspot things have limitations on the number of clients you can connect. I don't know if this is some hardware restriction or if the ISP has for some reason placed a limit.

Some versions of the wr841n support dd-wrt third party firmware. Not all do the key is what internal chips are used on different hardware revisions of that router. dd-wrt has more option and you can run the device as a wifi connected router which should get past limitation on clients. DD-wrt tends to be messy to setup.

Thanks bill001g - I'll look into the repeater/extender option.

 

[KM62]

I would recommend a two device approach. One a wireless bridge, that can connect to the hotspot and convert to ethernet cable. Then an AP to provide wider coverage. The Ubiquiti loco M2 or M5 (I think the Huawei supports 5Ghz) can connect to the hotspot AND will function as a router so that only a single connection is made to the hotspot -- to get around any device count limit.

Thanks kanewolf - sounds like a plan!