Cisco Linksys RE1000 Wireless-N Extender Reviewed

[njweb]

I got the Cisco RE1000 (pair it with my E4200 router) and it works great for me.
In parts of the house where the signal strength is normally good at best it now gets four or five bars of signal strength.
I can update this with dBm numbers (before and after RE1000).

My questions are the following:
1) Windows 7 only sees ONE SSID for my network.
Does this mean it somehow picks up the stronger of the two (my router or RE1000, both of which MUST use the same SSID in order to make use of the RE1000) automatically?

2) My wireless adapter's utility and my Blu-Ray players (with wifi adapter built-in) DO see the duplicate SSID and I can choose which one to connect to based on signal strength.
My question is will these wireless devices always pick the one I intially selected?
The reason I ask is that, given they have the same SSID and I am not using MAC address to distinguish them (maybe the devices somehow do this behind the scenes, although I tend to doubt it).

Anyway, I am very happy with the RE1000.

Caveat - The MAC address printed on the box and back of the unit correspond to that of the ethernet port and not the MAC address of the wireless networking (WLAN) portion of the extender!!!

 

[thiggins]

I don't know how the Win 7 client makes its selection. Could be strongest AP or could just be the first one it sees.

For your second question, it depends on how the client works.

If you want to connect to a specific AP, you need to assign a different SSID, which isn't possible when you use an extender / repeater.

 

[njweb]

I don't know how the Win 7 client makes its selection. Could be strongest AP or could just be the first one it sees.

For your second question, it depends on how the client works.

If you want to connect to a specific AP, you need to assign a different SSID, which isn't possible when you use an extender / repeater.

Thanks Tim!
Re. 1 - Thanks. Maybe I'll contact Microsoft to see what they say.
(I'm not sure I have ever needed their help believe it or not, in all the years I have been using PC's).

Re. 2 - Yes, I was wondering how the clients' drivers were coded / developed in that regard. I am sure each one is unique in that regard.
Right, the SSID for the Linksys RE1000 range extender indeed does need to match that of the source (E4200 router in my case).

I am pretty sure I read of another brand's range extender that allows a different SSID to be used (by handling the connection to the router behind the scenes). It may even require it to be different.
That can be both a pro and con depending on how you want your clients to connect of course...