Internet to AP to WEB to AP

[ncnet]

SNB Team:

All three routers in this question are running Tomato USB latest.

If i run internet to AP to WirelessEthernetBridge (WEB), and hardwire to the WEB then i will get full speed on the client laptop. So it stood to reason to me, that if i plug in another router to the WEB, and run it as an Access Point with a different SSID than the internet connected router, i should get the benefit of extending my wireless network with no speed penalty.

However, this isn't the case. Any laptop connected to the second SSID (which is generated by the router connected to the WEB) sees half speed.

Is there any way to work around this by changing configuration on these three routers?

 

[thiggins]

You also need to set the second AP to a different channel. Use 1, 6 or 11.

 

[ncnet]

Thanks for your feedback. The Internet-connected router is currently using ch11. For the WEB-connected router, i tried both channel 1 and 6. These were both slower than using ch11 for the second router (tested using a very reliable server on speedtest.net).

I guess i should also add i tried separating the WEB router and the second AP router by about five feet, and still observed the speed being halved.

My dload rate on the first/main SSID is 20Mbps, the second AP is consistently 9-10Mbps. Obviously a usable connection, i just don't understand why the second router doesn't have access to the full 20Mbps connection a laptop hardwired into the WEB router sees.

Just as a sanity check, do others run this same kind of config and see full speeds on the second AP/SSID?

Thanks again for the help with this. I have spent so much time trying to extend my network with no speed penalty, i really had high hopes this would work.

 

[thiggins]

That may be due to those channels being used by more active networks than 11. If you use the same channel as your main AP, then you are sharing bandwidth. But that doesn't appear to be your problem.

If you connect your client to the primary (Internet-connected) router, what link rate do you see on your client? Same question when you connect to the second AP.

How much lower speed do you see when you connect to the second AP?

 

[ncnet]

Hey Tim:

I edited my first reply with some addl info. You replied before i committed the edit.

Thanks again for your help with this.

 

[thiggins]

When two networks share the same channel, they both contend for the same bandwidth. So when one network is active, the other must wait.

Changing the second AP to a different non-overlapping channel should provide full bandwidth IF nothing else is contending for bandwidth. Running a check with inSSIDer or a similar tool should provide an idea of how many surrounding networks there are and their signal strength. It won't tell you how busy those networks are, however.

You could run an experiment, however, by changing your main AP to Channel 1 and 6, attaching your wireless client to it and checking the bandwidth.

 

[ncnet]

OK, thanks so much for the sanity check. I will continue to experiment with channel configurations. Just knowing it *is* possible to get full speed with this setup will help me with testing.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[ncnet]

I just finished some testing on this issue, and i get strange results.

Router 1 is connected to Internet, SSID1
Router 2 is Wireless Ethernet Bridge to Router 1 SSID1
Router 3 is connected to one of Router 2's LAN ports and has its own SSID2

If i switch R1 to channel 1, i get full speed when connected to SSID1. If i leave R3 on ch11 and connect to R3/SSID2, then i get very poor speed around 1-3 Mbps.

If i switch R3 to ch1, then connect to SSID2, i get half speed.

The optimal setup at this point seems to be R1 and R3 on ch11, but i can never get more than half speed when connected to R3. I seem to get best results when wireless network mode is auto.

Router 1 is a cisco E3000. I am now considering buying another e3000 and running it as the WEB to connect to the first e3000 on the 5GHz network, and then use the 2.4 network on the second e3000 to extend the network...would this work to extend my wireless range without halving the speed and without running cat5 between the two routers?

 

[ncnet]

Quick follow up on this thread...

I bought a Linksys WRT610N v1 refurb and put dd-wrt on it.

I now have the e3000 and the wrt. The e3k is hooked to the internet, it is running different ssids on 2.4 and 5 radios. The 2.4 radio is running ch 11.

I set up the wrt as an ethernet bridge on its 5 radio, and as an AP on its 2.4 radio on ch1 which has a different ssid than the e3k 2.4 radio (so three ssids in all now)

This setup seems to be working beautifully, i get full speed on either 2.4 ssid. The other benefit of this setup is i now just have two routers, instead of three as before.

Hope this helps someone.

 

[ncnet]

Another quick follow up on this thread. The combination of the wrt610n v1 router and dd-wrt firmware proved to be so flaky and unreliable (wireless dropouts, etc) that using it as a repeater is not possible.

I am going to see if i can borrow an e3000 or wrt610n v2 running tomatousb and see if it proves a more reliable combo.

I would strongly urge folks to avoid the wrt610n v1. Pretty disappointed because everything worked great right after the wrt610 v1 is booted up.

 

[ncnet]

So another quick, and hopefully final, update on this.

I reverted the wrt610n v1 to the latest oem linksys firmware (Ver.1.00.03.15). I set the wrt up as the internet router, and set it as an AP on both the 2.4 and 5 radios with different ssids. I put the 2.4 on channel 11 and left everything on the 5 radio to auto.

I then set up my E3000 running latest tomatousb as the WEB on its 5 radio, and as an access point on its 2.4 radio channel 1 running another SSID. Disabled DHCP, set the wrt IP as the e3000's gateway.

To my honest amazement, this setup has been rock solid for days now, no loss of throughput when connected to the e3000 2.4 network at all. No wireless drops, dhcp fwd'ing works great, etc.

I am really glad i tried the oem firmware on the WRT610n v1. DD-WRT was a total (and frustrating) disaster on that hardware.