Everything You Need To Know About Wireless Bridging and Repeating

[thiggins]

I'll post the details in the Buying Advice forum, but would love a short reply about which repeater/AP to buy between the EnGenius esr9850 and the Asus rt-n13u? Our repeater locations (unfortunately) will be limited to positions similar to SNB's D and E. Our primary router is a Netgear WNDR3700. Security is important as we have a lot of nearby wireless traffic, including at least one unfriendly neighbor who keeps trying to gain unauthorized access to our wireless network.

You don't want to place a repeater where it receives a weak signal from the primary router. You want at least a medium-strength signal. Otherwise the starting throughput will be too low and the repeated throughput will be very low.

I think you'd be better off with the ESR9850. It supports non WDS repeating, which you want in order to maintain a WPA/WPA2-protected network.

 

[RabidTreeMonkey]

Be sure to consider MoCa as an alternative to WiFi range extenders. I changed from a WiFi bridge to MoCa and am very happy to have it - dumb layer 2 MoCa, just works, and provides 70Mbps net at the IP layer.

I remember when this tech was new and SNB (among others) did some tests showing the tech was meh. Now, seeing how it has matured, I took your advice and checked it out. Your mention of 70Mbs is pretty tempting after all. Problem is we're in an old 1920s apartment building and our power distribution is pretty wonky. We share no common power circuits with any of the other apartments who will be sharing our broadband connection so we gotta stick to wireless transmission. Thanks anyways for the suggestion. It was pretty interesting to read about and see how potent an option MoCA has become.

 

[margolbe]

Confused about how to set up Engenius SER9850 as wireless bridge

I have a netgear WNDR3700 and just bought the Engenius device to use as a wireless bridge.

I am confused as to how to set up the Engenius Device. Do I hook it up to the original modem I have the Netgear Router on and then reconnect the netgear. Or, do I just set it up an a different computer without first hooking it up to the modem?

Any help would be appreciated ( a step by set guide would be great).

Thanks.

 

[stevech]

I remember when this tech was new and SNB (among others) did some tests showing the tech was meh. Now, seeing how it has matured, I took your advice and checked it out. Your mention of 70Mbs is pretty tempting after all. Problem is we're in an old 1920s apartment building and our power distribution is pretty wonky. We share no common power circuits with any of the other apartments who will be sharing our broadband connection so we gotta stick to wireless transmission. Thanks anyways for the suggestion. It was pretty interesting to read about and see how potent an option MoCA has become.

MoCa is IP over TV coax, not IP over power line.
Super reliable for me after many months of use.

 

[tipstir]

I have a netgear WNDR3700 and just bought the Engenius device to use as a wireless bridge.

I am confused as to how to set up the Engenius Device. Do I hook it up to the original modem I have the Netgear Router on and then reconnect the netgear. Or, do I just set it up an a different computer without first hooking it up to the modem?

Any help would be appreciated ( a step by set guide would be great).

Thanks.

There is a drop the menu to the right for AP/Router, Repeater, WDS (Wireless Bridging in which WDS APs) You would only connect via LAN port to a PC port to setup it up and then release the port and let the device run 100% wireless without the Ethernet cable.

 

[margolbe]

Still very confused

Do I plug the endgadget router into the same computer in which I currently have my Netgear 3700 router attached to, or do I just use any of the other computers that I am wirelessly connected to the Netgear device to set up the Engadge router to use as a wireless bridge? I want to set a up a non-WDS connection as discussed on the SmallNetBuilder article.

Thanks.

 

[tipstir]

Do I plug the endgadget router into the same computer in which I currently have my Netgear 3700 router attached to, or do I just use any of the other computers that I am wirelessly connected to the Netgear device to set up the Engadge router to use as a wireless bridge? I want to set a up a non-WDS connection as discussed on the SmallNetBuilder article.

Thanks.

WDS runs without LAN cable attached to it. But you would need to setup it up first with one. What do you need? A Repeater or WDS?

Your router and ESR-9850 would not be connected to each other. That only happens if you want to use the ESR-9850 as hardwired Access Point.

 

[margolbe]

Want to set up Engenius Router as a wireless bridge

My Netgear 3700 is my main router from which all my wireless devices are connected to it.

I want to use the Engenius Router as a wireless bridge to which I connect my blu ray player and wireless music streamer.

My question is to how to set up the Engenius Router to act as a wireless bridge.

I would love a step by step guide to do this.

When I set up the Engenius router to use as a wireless bridge, do I need to give it a different SSID that I do for the Netgear Router?

And, can I use any computer with a wireless connection to do this? Do I need to plug the Engenius Router via ethernet cable to the wireless PC I am using to configure it?

Any additional help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Unregistered]

what about cable-linked APs?

I enjoyed both articles, but they totally ignore a third possibility (besides wireless WDS and wireless non-WDS): wired bridging. Imagine having all your wireless APs connected through a common wired Ethernet backbone. By bridging them over that wired backbone somehow, you get no bandwidth loss. This should be technically easy, but I don't think there are any AP products that work this way, are they?

 

[Outlandish007]

Wireless bridge between WNDR3700 and ESR7750

I found this forum to be just what I needed. Obtained the Engenius and proceeded with the installation. Followed all the instructions but to no avail. Does this really work? Contacted Engenius and they say the chipset has to match or be compatible and informing that the chipset in the 7750 was Rawlink KT 3052 and 2280. Does anyone know what the chipset is for the Netgear WNDR3700?

 

[Outlandish007]

My Netgear 3700 is my main router from which all my wireless devices are connected to it.

I want to use the Engenius Router as a wireless bridge to which I connect my blu ray player and wireless music streamer.

My question is to how to set up the Engenius Router to act as a wireless bridge.

I would love a step by step guide to do this.

When I set up the Engenius router to use as a wireless bridge, do I need to give it a different SSID that I do for the Netgear Router?

And, can I use any computer with a wireless connection to do this? Do I need to plug the Engenius Router via ethernet cable to the wireless PC I am using to configure it?

Any additional help would be greatly appreciated.

Did you ever get a step by step for the Wireless bridge between the WNDR3700 and the ESR7750? What did you do?

Thanks for your help, Wayne
carsearch@acanac.net

 

[lethial]

Thank you very much for all the great articles. Regarding the non-wds repeating, is it true that ESR-7750 doesn't have that option?

I just got the router hoping to use it as a wireless repeater for my WNDR3700 but it looks like that unlike the ESR-9850, the ESr-7750 does NOT have a repeater mode?

Am I missing something obvious? Or am I stuck with WDS?

thanks

 

[thiggins]

Thank you very much for all the great articles. Regarding the non-wds repeating, is it true that ESR-7750 doesn't have that option?

That is correct. WDS only.

 

[lethial]

That is correct. WDS only.

bummer I thought I got a better version of the router instead I might have gotten one that is actually worse for my case. Doh! Thanks for the clarification though.

 

[corgi1]

WDS bridging vs. non-WDS bridging/repeating

I have read both of the Everything You Need to Now about Wireless Bridging and Repeating articles. I have one question regarding the performance of the two bridging methods. I know that using WDS cuts the throughput in half. Does non-WDS bridging/repeating also cut the throughput in half?

 

[thiggins]

I have read both of the Everything You Need to Now about Wireless Bridging and Repeating articles. I have one question regarding the performance of the two bridging methods. I know that using WDS cuts the throughput in half. Does non-WDS bridging/repeating also cut the throughput in half?

Good question. Any time one radio is used to receive then retransmit, then throughput is cut in half. This applies to both WDS and non-WDS repeating. Bridging (connecting to an Ethernet client) does not suffer the throughput hit because the receiving radio is not retransmitting.

I'll clarify in the article.

 

[corgi1]

Good question. Any time one radio is used to receive then retransmit, then throughput is cut in half. This applies to both WDS and non-WDS repeating. Bridging (connecting to an Ethernet client) does not suffer the throughput hit because the receiving radio is not retransmitting.

I'll clarify in the article.

Thanks for the clarification. So... if I were to setup a main router such as the EnGenius ESR9850 and wanted to connect a few other ESR9850s in WDS or non-WDS repeater mode, the throughput would not suffer on anything connected to one of the ethernet ports on the remote bridged/repeater? The hit is only for devices connecting wirelessly, correct?

I notice that many WDS routers, such as the ESR9850, have a limit of 4 WDS connections. Is there a limit to the number of non-WDS repeater connections? I need a minimum of 5 bridged connections. I suppose I could setup 4 WDS connections and then one non-WDS repeater all connecting to the main router.

 

[thiggins]

Non-WDS bridges look like regular clients to an AP. Most APs will let a dozen or so clients connect. Throughput per client depends on traffic.

Once again, there is a throughput hit only when repeating because a single radio is receiving then retransmitting. No wireless retransmission, no throughput hit.

 

[corgi1]

Thanks Tim, I appreciate the information!

 

[thiggins]

I enjoyed both articles, but they totally ignore a third possibility (besides wireless WDS and wireless non-WDS): wired bridging. Imagine having all your wireless APs connected through a common wired Ethernet backbone. By bridging them over that wired backbone somehow, you get no bandwidth loss. This should be technically easy, but I don't think there are any AP products that work this way, are they?

Uh. That is not bridging. That is how multiple access points are normally configured.