Wireless Bridge?

I hope someone can help me with an interior decorating problem. ;)

My new apartment has the cable outlet in an odd place, and it looks like the cable provider won't be able to move it. Because of the setup, that is where the television will go.

So I need to set up my desk and computers on the opposite wall. I'd rather not run 50 ft. of cable around the perimeter of the room, and across two main walkways.

I currently have:

Motorola SB5100 Cable Modem Linksys BEFSR41 Router Linksys 5 port Gigabit Switch

4 systems with gigabit ethernet cards, and 1 notebook I've been using with ethernet.

Obviously I don't want to go wireless on each system since that would defeat the purpose of the gigabit network.

Can I bridge two WAP's so that I can have the modem and one WAP connected to the cable jack, and another WAP connected to the router? The internet connection is only 5 Mb/s, so good WAP's should mean that I would notice no degradation in speed.

I've worked with WAP's before (I have a Linksys WAP sitting in a box somewhere that I've had no use for lately), but never bridging them, so I might not even understand what it means. For instance, if the WAP's are bridged can I ever connect the notebook via wireless?

If anyone has any suggestions on how to solve my problem with no loss in speed I would appreciate it.

Reply to
Spender
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On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 17:23:09 GMT, Spender wrote in :

How about:

  • Under the carpet (with special cable)
  • Behind the baseboards

What you want is:

  • Cable Modem connected to the WAN port of a Wireless Access Point (WAP) or of a Wireless Router configured as an Access Point.
  • Wireless Client Bridge connected to the WAN port of the Wired Router.

You can't bridge with two WAPs -- they won't talk to each other -- you need a Wireless Client Bridge (also known as Wireless Ethernet Bridge).

Reply to
John Navas

So move the cable outlet. It seems like it'd be a far better idea to move the coax than it would be to screw around with the networking. There are any number of clever ways to re-route coax cables.

Reply to
Bill Kearney

So can you please explain to me what this means

"When set to "Access Point Client", "Wireless Bridge" or "Wireless Bridge - Point to MultiPoint" mode, the device will only communicate with another WAP 11 ver. 2.6,WAP 11,WAP54G,WAP55AG,WRT54G or WRT55AG."

This is in the setup of my WAP11

Reply to
David

This is what my WAP11 says too on the main setup page. But try as I may, entering MAC addresses, I cannot get it to act as a client or repeater for my WRT54G.

Is there anybody out there that has had success bridging or using the WAP11 as a client?

Reply to
seaweedsteve

On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:36:11 -0700, David wrote in :

The WAP11 does have a proprietary client bridge mode. Many other wireless access points don't have any sort of client bridge mode.

Reply to
John Navas

The outlet can't be moved, at least not professionally. The landlord won't allow any drilling. Running the cable all the way around the room just seems like a daunting task with possibly unsightly results. I have to cross the landing the top of the stairs and then cross the patio doors.

If I have to go that route I'd need to do it in such a way that there is zero danger of tripping over the cable. I have an eight month old son who will be toddling soon enough, not to mention yanking on funny looking cables.

Reply to
Spender

Thanks I did not know that

Reply to
David

Hi, If you're technically inclined, I'd take a look and see if one of the Linksys Linux firmware replacements will work with your hardware. They support bridging via WDS IIRC, and that does exactly what you want.

Or, if you're lazy like me, just get 2 new wireless routers that do WDS. I have a townhouse and I can't drill holes between the floors, so I use WDS wireless as my backplane (with Tivo and XBox downstairs, and computer room upstairs, along with wireless for the laptops).

Reply to
hennessy

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