Two wireless routers, one SSID, some basic questions,

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martyyn

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#105907 13-Jul-2012 14:21

Ive moved into a new house and before I wire the place up I just want to get the wireless up and running but because the section is huge and the line comes into one corner of the house Ive set up a second linksys wireless as a 'repeater' off the Telecom supplied Thomson.

Ive set the second one up with the same SSID and password etc and I have it on a different channel (6 compared to the Thomson 11) but when I move from one end of the house to the other the devices stay attached to the their original connections which is usually the Thomson at the far end of the house.

If I change the SSID of the second router they can connect to it with no problem but thats not what I want to do.

So my question is how do I have the devices (laptops, asus tablet and N1) switch between them ? Is that what they actually do (switch between two routers depending on the signal strength) ? Or should I see nothing but the bars go up on the device to say its now connected to the second one ?

[edit]
More info.

The Thomson is set to 192.168.1.254 with its DHCP pool being 192.168.1.64-253 and Ive assigned a static-ip being 192.168.1.2 for the Linksys.

The Linksys is set up as Static-IP with:
Internet IP Address 192.168.1.2
gateway 192.168.1.254
local IP Addtress 192.168.1.2
DHCP disabled
and Ive done nothing to the ports (I did a full reset of the Linksys before starting all this)

cyril7

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#655086 13-Jul-2012 14:27

Hi, normally when the signal strength drops low enough the devices will rescan and attach to the AP with the highest strength/quality. There is no way that you can tell that its connected to one router or the other if they have the same SSID except by observing the signal strength move.

This is quite a common issue if the signal strength in each AP's coverage area is still quite usable, ie the devices dont realise they should rescan, 802.11 was not really designed with active AP switching in mind.

commercial systems force devices to rescan by actively de registering them when the signal gets to a determined threshold, ie that threshold may not just be signal level related but number of clients, ie when an AP gets X many devices connected it will start bumping the ones with lower signals off hoping they will find an adjacent AP that is a better option.

Cyril

martyyn

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#655091 13-Jul-2012 14:35

Thanks Cyril,

So what youre saying is I should see the signal strength change when Im out of the 'usable' range of the Thomson ?

cyril7

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#655096 13-Jul-2012 14:37

Hi yes.

martyyn

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#655110 13-Jul-2012 14:53

Great thank you.

Ive just gone to the garage with the second AP setup and get a 'fair' signal according to the N1 whereas when I switch the second AP off I get no signal and an 'out of range' comment.

So its obviously working :)

Also I reset the wifi on the ipod in the kitchen (opposite end of the house to the splitter and Thomson) and its gone from one bar to four so thats obviously on the second AP aswell now.

sbiddle

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#655122 13-Jul-2012 15:06

I've seen Windows machines report incorrect incorrect signal strength when roaming across AP's.

richms

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#655162 13-Jul-2012 16:22

I have had windows show 1 bar in the tray because that is what it is really connected to, but show full in the list of networks because the scan shows the closer one, it's just to retarded to move over to the closer one without turning wireless off and on again.

Absurd that it knows about the network but wont shift to it till its so bad that voip is breaking up and its unusable.

802.11g on XP seemed to be so much better about chopping between AP's without breaks, but that may have been the intel software doing it, not windows.

Richard rich.ms