Quick question- Using second router as a repeater

[Chronos5618]

Hi all,

 

Hopefully this should be a fairly quick question to answer for anyone familiar with networking. Moving into a new house tomorrow, and while the router is on the ground floor, my room will be on the third floor where I get noticeably worse signal for both my phone and PC. I have a second router, so I was wondering whether it was worth using it as a repeater, connecting it to the router downstairs via a powerline adaptor. I've heard rumours that using a repeater slices your speeds in half, so would it be better to live with the slower speed on my phone and connect my PC directly to the router downstairs via powerline...or can I do both? By both I mean, connect my second router to the first router via powerline, and then plug in my PC to the second router to act as a wired connection.

 

In short- I have two routers, is it worth setting one up as a repeater or shall I just plug in via powerline and deal with the slower speeds on my phone.

 

Cheers! 

[Levent]

Hi all,

 

Hopefully this should be a fairly quick question to answer for anyone familiar with networking. Moving into a new house tomorrow, and while the router is on the ground floor, my room will be on the third floor where I get noticeably worse signal for both my phone and PC. I have a second router, so I was wondering whether it was worth using it as a repeater, connecting it to the router downstairs via a powerline adaptor. I've heard rumours that using a repeater slices your speeds in half, so would it be better to live with the slower speed on my phone and connect my PC directly to the router downstairs via powerline...or can I do both? By both I mean, connect my second router to the first router via powerline, and then plug in my PC to the second router to act as a wired connection.

 

In short- I have two routers, is it worth setting one up as a repeater or shall I just plug in via powerline and deal with the slower speeds on my phone.

 

Cheers! 

that will work fine.

[W-L]

-SNIP-

 

If your using power line to the secondary router setup the secondary in bridge mode to create a new access point and switch so you can connect your PC via ethernet from that point, it will be limited by the powerline's max throughput but for the wifi it won't have that loss with a repeater.

[InVis]

I think you mean that you would like to use it as an access point? There is no point in using repeaters if it is possible to get some kind og wired connection.

 

Repeaters do slice your throughput in half, but access points does not.

 

The simply solution to the configuration would be if the router has an option to convert it to an ap or simply just disable the dhcp server and the router functionality in it

 

Which router are we talking about? modelnumber?

 

or can I do both? By both I mean, connect my second router to the first router via powerline, and then plug in my PC to the second router to act as a wired connection.

You can do exactly that

[Chronos5618]

I think you mean that you would like to use it as an access point? There is no point in using repeaters if it is possible to get some kind og wired connection.

 

Repeaters do slice your throughput in half, but access points does not.

 

The simply solution to the configuration would be if the router has an option to convert it to an ap or simply just disable the dhcp server and the router functionality in it

 

Which router are we talking about? modelnumber?

 

or can I do both? By both I mean, connect my second router to the first router via powerline, and then plug in my PC to the second router to act as a wired connection.

You can do exactly that

That sounds like just the ticket. It's a TP-Link TD-W8970 that I've had lying around from an old project. I would image that should work- it's not IPS blocked or anything. If I set it up as an access point, with that also improve the wifi? 

[InVis]

That sounds like just the ticket. It's a TP-Link TD-W8970 that I've had lying around from an old project. I would image that should work- it's not IPS blocked or anything. If I set it up as an access point, with that also improve the wifi? 

When engineering a WLAN, one should always consider amount of clients, air-time, interference and needed throughput..

 

If you by improve mean throughput, coverage, packet loss and signal strength I would say yes - unless some other wierd factors come into play

[Chronos5618]

When engineering a WLAN, one should always consider amount of clients, air-time, interference and needed throughput..

 

If you by improve mean throughput, coverage, packet loss and signal strength I would say yes - unless some other wierd factors come into play

I don't think anything funny should be happening. Just need a solid connection that doesn't have a 50% loss like a repeater. Should only be catering for about 6 or 7 people, so sounds like this is what I should go for. Found a walk through on the TP website to guide me through. Last (probably stupid) question but will the second router show up as a separate device that people need to connect, or should both routers work together i.e. I only need to get them to connect to one, and they will be covered by both depending where they are in house? Forgive my noobish nature- network is not really my strong point (though I do love to learn)!  

[InVis]

I don't think anything funny should be happening. Just need a solid connection that doesn't have a 50% loss like a repeater. Should only be catering for about 6 or 7 people, so sounds like this is what I should go for. Found a walk through on the TP website to guide me through. Last (probably stupid) question but will the second router show up as a separate device that people need to connect, or should both routers work together i.e. I only need to get them to connect to one, and they will be covered by both depending where they are in house? Forgive my noobish nature- network is not really my strong point (though I do love to learn)!  

Yes it will show up as another device they have to connect to There is almost no way to do it seemlessly without a WIFI controller and some access points (like Ubiquiti, Cisco, Netgear, xclaim etc) 

The WIFI clients (your phones, computers, tablets and so) "should" automatically connect to the network with the best signal if they know both networks

[Chronos5618]

Yes it will show up as another device they have to connect to There is almost no way to do it seemlessly without a WIFI controller and some access points (like Ubiquiti, Cisco, Netgear, xclaim etc) 

The WIFI clients (your phones, computers, tablets and so) "should" automatically connect to the network with the best signal if they know both networks

Ah, that's cool- I can just give any guests the main router and let my housemates know the other. Thanks for the help!

[InVis]

Happy to help