Running two WAP's at full functionality... can we?

[Briank007]

We have a NetGear Nighthawk X6 and purchased two EX6200 extenders to extend our wifi.

My boss has been less than impressed with the ability of the extenders and he is looking to try something a little different but I am wondering how it all works, exactly. Perhaps someone with more in-depth knowledge of this type of configuration could school me a little bit. Because to be completely honest, I think he is making assumptions the same way I am, but they are conflicting.

My boss seems to think the extenders are crap, because they take an already degraded signal and just re-broadcast it, which to me, seems perfectly acceptable. This is what your mobile phone provider does all over the planet. Their networks are a vast network of "extenders" which are termed "repeaters" in that industry, that do exactly this. He is convinced that if I am connected through an extender, that is then talking back to the router, I am getting a doubly-crap signal. He wants the two extenders to be hardwired back to the NightHawk and basically transmitting a "brand new" wireless signal from both locations at which the Extenders are positioned. This is not an option with our Extenders (or any that I have seen), they only grab an existing wifi connection and re-broadcast.

His idea is to get a second NightHawk X6 and place them at opposing ends of our building to cover everywhere. He want's to run Cat6 all the way back to our switch for each router. So basically if you are on the East end of the building, and walk to the west end while doing something via wifi, you don't just hop along the extenders, you drop off the router completely and get an entirely new IP address from the other WAP. Instead of one WAP hard-wired to the switch, with two strategically placed extenders, he wants two WAP's hardwired back to the switch, negotiating their entirely separate conditions and address ranges. To confuse, he wants it to ACT like an extender in that he wants them to both have the same SSID & security settings, so devices can connect to either one without changing anything.

This is really frustrating me because I can't find a definitive answer saying "this can't be done" but I really feel like the extenders are the right way to go.

Any help that might be available through this community would be greatly appreciated!

 

[netwrks]

I didn't see anything about turning the 8000 into an AP, in the documentation. (can find pdf on NG's site).
I would say turn everything off, but the WIFI and use it as a layer two device, but you might lose some of the 8000's wifi tri-band feature(s). I would do this.. Return, or sell the extenders (more headaches that they are worth). Purchase one, or two, 7000's, set them as AP's, and cable them back to the 8000. Use the 8000, as the outer with its WIFI enabled. Same SSID's different band channels. And away you go..

 

[thiggins]

Your boss is correct. He is basically asking to set up a network of multiple access points (APs), connected via Ethernet. That is how the pros do it.

Wireless extenders are popular for home use because many homes don't have the Ethernet cabling required for this method.

Mobile networks use lots of base stations, connected via backhaul links. Some of those links are wireless, but they use dedicated radios.

Using a single radio to receive and retransmit data always takes twice the air time, so cuts throughput in half.

See The Best Way To Get Whole House Wireless Coverage

 

[stevech]

One LAN, one router, x number of APs to provide good coverage.
Commonplace.
Be sure the APs are APs, or routers that have an explicit AP mode.

 

[colecaz]

The problem with this approach, and it's exactly what I did in my house, is that the client (the phone or PC) that's moving from one end of the building to the other will not drop the access point it's on until it is completely out of range. As long as it can sniff any signal at all it will not change to the stronger access point. To overcome this requires voting access points and routers and you're getting into big bucks stuff and complicated setups.

The alternative is to put in two AP's with different SID's and the user manually selects the stronger one.

 

[azazel1024]

Your boss is correct. He is basically asking to set up a network of multiple access points (APs), connected via Ethernet. That is how the pros do it.

Wireless extenders are popular for home use because many homes don't have the Ethernet cabling required for this method.

Mobile networks use lots of base stations, connected via backhaul links. Some of those links are wireless, but they use dedicated radios.

Using a single radio to receive and retransmit data always takes twice the air time, so cuts throughput in half.

See The Best Way To Get Whole House Wireless Coverage

Yup, when wireless, with rare exceptions, they are using 22/60GHz wireless (1Gbps+ backhauls for Line-of-sight connections to a tower several miles away). Most are hardwired for cell towers though.

Single radio extenders have the automatic 50% reduction because of re-broadcast. In my experience, the best implementation of repeaters is if you can get line-of-sight from the original base station, to the repeater, which then repeats the signal in to poor performing areas.