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can a wifi AP connect to a wifi router wirelessly??

I am sure the answer to this simple and common question is buried in here somewhere. But I can't find it. can someone help.

Since my maiin wifi router doesn't hit the front of my house, I am tryin to extend the range of my home WAN.

One suggestion is to setup an access point to hit the front of the house. I've read and followed the Netgear instructions to do this but their example shows a wired connectino between the main wifi router and the AP, and then the PC connecting via wifi to the AP.

This kind of defeats the purpose of things. I am trying to stay all wireless and avoid having to run a long ethernet cable across the house (or worse, pull it through the wall.)

can an AP communicate to a wifi router via wifi?

so, is it feasible to do: A) PC >wifi to> AP and B) AP >wifi to> main wifi router ?? so all connections wireless?

many thanks

Reply to
pstock
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here's the answer. whoever this Jack fellow is, he's good. Peter

Hi

In order to be capable to communicate with the Main Router you need a device (Wireless Router, or Access Point) that can be configured to work in Client mode (Regular Access Point Mode would not provide communication between two Wireless Routers/Access Points).

Most new Access Points can be configured as a Client.

very few Wireless Routers can be configured as a client.

Of the Brand name Entry Level Cable/DSL Routers

Buffalo Tech., some of the Belkin, and some of the SMC, 802.11g models have the capacity to be configured out of the box as clients.

Linksys WRT54g v.1-4, and WRT54L models can be flashed with 3rd party firmware and work as Clients.

These pages include more info concerning these issues.

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I am sure the answer to this simple and common question is buried in

Reply to
pstock

A pair of routers running WDS can do exactly that. Each router can simultaneouly act as an access point (for wireless client connections) and as a transparent bridge to talk to the other router(s). See: |

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(10 pages)

One catch is that traffic through two WDS bridges has it's maximum thruput cut in half (because only one transmitter can be on the air at a time). This is usually not a problem if you're sharing a broadband connection where the wireless is much faster than the broadband link. However, it might be a problem for computer to computer transfers over the WLAN.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

One more gotcha. WDS bridging and WPA encryption are mutually exclusive in most routers because WDS can only handle static encryption keys. The best you can do in WDS bridging mode is WEP, which is not at all secure. If you're worried about security, make sure your WDS bridge can do WPA in WDS mode. I couldn't find any data sheet pages that specifically claim that their product does this.

Implimenttng WPA over WDS links: |

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WDS setup won't work when using WPA Enterprise |
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 06:08:06 GMT Jeff Liebermann wrote: | On 4 Aug 2006 15:40:42 -0700, "pstock" wrote: | |>can an AP communicate to a wifi router via wifi? | | A pair of routers running WDS can do exactly that. Each router can | simultaneouly act as an access point (for wireless client connections) | and as a transparent bridge to talk to the other router(s). See: | |

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| |
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(10 pages) | | One catch is that traffic through two WDS bridges has it's maximum | thruput cut in half (because only one transmitter can be on the air at | a time). This is usually not a problem if you're sharing a broadband | connection where the wireless is much faster than the broadband link. | However, it might be a problem for computer to computer transfers over | the WLAN.

You get the same problem with an access point serving 2 or more local machines, for the traffic between those machines.

Reply to
phil-news-nospam

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