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Attaching a repeater to a bridge to get around bandwidth limitation?

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felixdd

Occasional Visitor
As I understand, a wireless repeater will cut bandwidth in half (loosely speaking). Also, connecting a second AP to a router will not affect bandwidth, and neither does a wireless bridge.

What happens if I hook up a second AP to a wireless bridge?

This doesn't make any sense to me (because I feel like people would've already made this) but here's the situation:

AC1900 (converted to AC68U) upstairs besides the modem.
N56U downstairs, hooked up to HTPC/file server (so I can WOL through VPN when I'm out of town).

All clients except 2 are communicating with the AC1900 by the 5GHz band
Only the N56U (bridge) and my cell phone uses the 2.4GHz band.

Lately I've had guests over and noticed that my 5GHz signal strength isn't the strongest. The guests can all still use the band fine (they haven't complained) but it bothers me to have the signal bar not at full blast :D

I do have a N66U lying around (I felt using it as a bridge was way overkill). However, can I plug it in by ethernet cable into the N55U and set it up as a 5GHz access point? If I do that, would it affect bandwidth at all?

Or, does setting up Padavan (N56U) or Merlin (N66U) to bridge thru 2.4GHz and AP as 5GHz, achieve the same purpose?

Ultimately, I was wondering if I can bridge and repeat, with no/minimal impacting the bandwidth for all other users/HTPC.
 
I don’t think hooking up N66 (via ethernet cable) as a repeater to N56 makes any sense, if anything you’re just creating a loop.

Now if you connect N66 as an AP, that would work and you’ll probably get full bars of signal but that’s ultimately handicapped by the bridge that’s going over 2.4Ghz between the N56 and your main router.
 
I don’t think hooking up N66 (via ethernet cable) as a repeater to N56 makes any sense, if anything you’re just creating a loop.

Now if you connect N66 as an AP, that would work and you’ll probably get full bars of signal but that’s ultimately handicapped by the bridge that’s going over 2.4Ghz between the N56 and your main router.

Sorry I probably wasn't very cost in my initial post but my intention is indeed to hook up the N66u as an AP to broadcast at 5GHz.

I understand it would be more load at 2.4GHz... But would this setup be any different than doing a dual-band bridge that others have mentioned?
 
I understand it would be more load at 2.4GHz... But would this setup be any different than doing a dual-band bridge that others have mentioned?

I have no idea which two scenarios you’re comparing, since your setup is quite unique to begin with.

Also, I’m still not entirely sure what you’re trying to do and what problem you’re trying to solve. Sounds like the N56 is only using 2.4Ghz for bridging? Why not use both bands? And why have a device(N66) lying around doing nothing?

With what I understand so far, I would use N66 as a bridge (use both bands) and use the N56 as AP since I’m guessing that’s where your guests would be close to so should be no problem getting full bars from that.
 

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