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Extending Wireless Network

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by kstruck

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I need to extend a wireless network from one office suite to another. The two suites are located about 70 feet apart and 1 floor apart in a 3 story office building. This is your typical office building steel/concrete construction.

Is it possible to buy a second Wireless AP and use that as a extender? I have run Cat5 from the original AP to the new office so I was hoping to use the cat5 to connect the 2 APs.

I need these two offices to share the same network for Printing and other needs.

22 replies

by robo_dev

First of all the distance is no problem at all. As long as there is not an elevator shaft or stairwell in between you will be fine.

Do you want to extend the Wired network into the other building as well? Or just the wireless network?

What AP are you using?

If you want to extend the wired network, then what you need is wireless lan 'bridge' or an AP that supports 'bridge mode'.

Many APs do not support bridge-mode, so you cannot just connect an AP to another AP.

If you want to have wireless clients on both ends, you need APs that can support both bridge-mode and AP mode at the same time, or an AP that can work as a repeater.

Some devices are dedicated bridges (Cisco Wireless Bridges), and some devices can work as both an AP and a bridge at the same time (albeit with reduced performance). Some devices can also be configured to operate as a repeater.

In some cases it makes sense to make the bridge be just a bridge, and buy seperate APs for Wireless client access.

Some Cisco APs support this dual mode (they call it 'workgroup bridge mode'.

If you want to extend the wireless network, you need an AP that can be configured as 'repeater mode'. (Cisco can also do this).

Repeater mode is the simplest to configure, but the performance is not as good...typically you get half the throughput since the repeater has to handle two data streams at the same time. So to recap:

Option A, Best solution:
remote building<<<---->>>main building

[AP]--[Ethernet switch]-[WLAN bridge] <<<--->>[WLAN bridge]--[Ethernet switch] in main building

This would give you the best performance and reliability, and allow wired devices such as printers to connect to the LAN.

Option B:

Least complex, yet slowest:
[AP](repeater mode) <---> [AP] main building

Option C:
remote building<<---->>main building
[Ethernet Switch*]--[AP](Dual Mode) <<<--->>[WLAN bridge] or [Dual-mode AP]--[Ethernet Switch] in main building

*optional

More complex, somewhat faster than option B, but also enables optional wired ethernet in remote building.

Using a dedicated wlan bridge will give the best performance, but a dual-mode AP workgroup bridge and AP) will work, but not as fast.

by kstruck

Thanks for the info. I wanted to clarify, that the new office location is in the SAME building just on the floor right above the main office and about 75 feet away, meaning it is not directly above.

Do you have any specific model information for option c that are known to work together.

I am on Colorado and the office I need to work in is in Roswell, GA. I am headed there this weekend and need to have everything up and running for Monday AM.

Thank you in advance for your great answer and suggestions.

I see you are in Atlanta, are you available on a consulting basis this weekend if needed?

by robo_dev

In most buildings that are concrete/steel construction, you can go vertical from the ceiling of one floor to the floor of the next without much problem.

My experience has been with Cisco and Symbol gear, which tends not to be something you can buy at a store (e.g. long lead times)

I'll dig around to see if any off-the-shelf gear will work.

Send me a PM; I am fairly busy but might be able to help over the phone this weekend.

by tintoman

Robo_dev has certainly gone to a lot of trouble to answer this for you, but am I missing something here? I thought all you wanted to do was enable wireless access to your network in another office?
You do not need to mess about trying to connect APs together and using one as a range extender, you are asking for all sorts of trouble if you do that.
You said you have already laid ethernet from one office to the other, so why not plug the downstairs into your network switch or router, then at the top offices connect another AP to the end of the ethernet cable.
If you want wired connections upstairs fit another switch on the ethernet cable and plug your AP into the switch.

by wesley.chin

Is it DHCP or fixed IP? You mention printing and other needs. What kind of other needs?

What kinds of OS? PC, Mac? Laptop, desktop?

by the scummy one

of what is really needed. Does the other office have the
network (cabled) already setup?
Do you want/need to just extend the wireless from 1 to
the other for access?
How many people will be 'connecting' to the wireless
network?
if it is not cabled, is this to try to extend the network into
the other floor/building without cabling?

There are many setups that can be used depending on
your needs. The more info the better.
Range would not be your issue, but it depends on what is
in between the 2 networks (if a bridge is to be used) as to
its effectiveness.

If you just want to add a few wireless clients and bridge,
you can also get a wireless workgroup bridge, rather than
a bridge and seperate AP. But this all depends on the
needs/wants/area to determine the best plan.

by kstruck

Basically, we have a dsl coming into an 1st floor office that is then connected to a wireless router. Employees connect to this connection wirelessly.

We are leasing additional office space in the same building but 1 floor above the 1st floor office. Since the building is steel/concrete, I did not think a Wireless extender would work.

I need the 2nd floor office employees to be able to access the 1st floor server (for backups) and printing wirelessly. All employees need to move freely between the 2 offices while being able to access printers/servers in either of the 2 office spaces.

Since I am in Denver and this office is in Atlanta, and I need to have it ready to go on Monday, I am flying to Atlanta Sat to work on it on Sunday so I have limited time to try different options.

I hope that explains what I am looking to do.

Thanks to everyone who has responded so far.

by robo_dev

If by chance it's a Linksys WRT54G, you may be able to use your existing WLAN router.

If not, then what it would take would be a pair of Linksys WAP54G Access Points. (WAP54 or WAP54GP)

The primary WAP54G would be configured as an AP, and the secondary one would be configured as a wireless repeater.

It looks like the WAP54 has four modes:

AP, bridge, AP client, and repeater

the WAP 54 cannot do both AP Client and repeater at the same time (like Cisco can)

If the building's characteristics are difficult, then it may be necessary to hook two WAP54s back to back as bridges (leaving the original Wireless Router intact), Then a third WAP54 would be needed for the clients to connect to. This would not be very likely, though.

by w2ktechman

then go the route of bridging, using a bridge and a wireless workgroup bridge on the client end. Then you dont need to obtain an extra AP. However, if it is for a larger group, it should be able to bridge well, and then setup a few AP's to suit coverage.

If there is too much loss/multipath/interference that you may want to have it cabled (backbone) to the 2nd office, and then setup the wireless from there.

by robo_dev

I didn't read about the 'ran cat5 to the new office part' (duh).

Technically, you're just plugging the 2nd AP into the network, so as long as you have an ethernet port at the router-end to plug into, then any garden variety Access Point (such as a WAP54G) would work without a hitch.

by kstruck

I went ahead a purchased the WET54G yesterday afternoon since it was one of the few Wireless Bridges I could find and available to me in the short timeframe I have.

Thanks to everyone for their great responses and their advice, I really appreciate it. Hopefully I will be able to return the favor sometime.

by robo_dev

so your plan is:

[DSL router-existing wlan] <<--wireless connection to next floor--->> wet54g---[ethernet switch]---[wap54g access point]

You cannot connect users to the wet54g wirelessly since it is a bridge, and only a bridge. The wet54g will allow the ethernet network to be extended to the next floor.

Since you have indicated that you have run ethernet to the new location, all you need is a WAP54G Access Point.

If you have no free ethernet ports on the wireless router, you may need to buy a small ethernet switch as well.

Then the configuration would be:

existing wlan router------ethernet to next floor----WAP54G access point

by kstruck

I went ahead a purchased the WET54G yesterday afternoon since it was one of the few Wireless Bridges I could find and available to me in the short timeframe I have.

Thanks to everyone for their great responses and their advice, I really appreciate it. Hopefully I will be able to return the favor sometime.

by techienate

Some of the people that are posting are misunderstanding your situation. Ignore stuff about wireless bridging--all you need to do is connect an access point to the network. Your wireless clients on the second access point will simply become part of your existing network with the same access to the internet, server, and printers as those connected to your oringal wireless router.

If I understand you correctly, there is no network set up in the second office suite. If you already ran cat 5 between the offices, the job is probably quite easy from here. Simply connect the cat five in the first office to an open port on your original wireless router, and plug the wireless access point into the other end. If you assign the same SSID and security key (WEP, WPA, etc.) to the second wireless access point, users already connected to the wireless network at the first access point will automatically connect to the new access point when they come in range of it, if that's what you want.

I would use a wireless access point and not a wireless router for this wireless connection on the second floor. (Or set up/configure a wireless router to act as an access point.)

If there is a wired network set up already in the second office and you want to combine the two networks into one, it gets slightly more complicated (I won't go into details here, if that is not the case).

If you want seamless roaming between the wireless access points, one rule of thumb is to have the coverage area's overlap by 20-30 percent. If they have the same configuration (as I mentioned above) but the wireless coverage areas do not overlap, you will simply lose connectivity temporarily while transitioning from one wap to another--you will still automatically reconnect when you come within the range of the other access point. In your case, however, I wouldn't worry about that too much, unless your users need to stream data as they walk up and down the stairs.

In answer to your question about what works together: If you want seamless roaming between access points, you probably want to stick to the same manufacturer as your wireless router. Otherwise, it really doesn't matter. For homes and small offices, I like linksys (and buffalo, but their wireless stuff got pulled from the market while they fight a patent dispute) networking hardware. Sonicwall makes great routers for small businesses. Just avoid really cheap no-name stuff. I would also recommend you avoid D-link as well--from my experience, their routers are rather problematic.

The short and simple answer (in case I made it confusing with excessive details):
1. Get a wireless access point (not a wireless router)

2. Plug the cat5 cable into the port on the wireless access point.

3. Plug the other end of the cat5 cable into your original wireless router.

4. Configure the wireless access point with:
a. an ip address within your network range (eg. 192.168.1.x)
b. the exact same wireless SSID as the original wireless router
c. the same wireless encryption as the original wireless router

This will give everyone the same access to everything, from both offices.

by kstruck

This is what I was hoping to hear, but thought it would be too simple.

by robo_dev

In my experience, if an Access Point is mounted in the ceiling of the floor below, and has at least a couple-db omni antenna, it can cover parts of the floor above, in a typical concrete and steel structure.

HOWEVER, there are typcially dead-spots on the far side of the elevator shafts and stairwells.

There is no 'free lunch' with respect to antennas. Most antennas designed for long distance connections are very directional, which is of little use inside an office building.

by techienate

Robo_dev is right on with the "no free lunch" comment. This includes high-gain omni-directional antenna's too, because although using a high gain omni-directional antenna increases your coverage area on a horizontal plane, but it does so by decreasing the vertical beam width, or your vertical coverage area.

If you already have the cat 5 cable run between the two offices, adding a second access point is incredibly simple, as well as being the most effective solution. The second access point solution eliminates a lot of potential problems and will improve the network throughput as opposed to having all your wireless clients using the same access point, because wireless networking bandwidth is shared among the wireless clients.

by jdclyde

I use one of these systems to bridge the network to an out building that would not have been economical to run fiber out to.

I am able to connect wirelessly to the bridge with my laptop, when in that building.

by robo_dev

None of these products seem to have the best documentation.

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