Access point setup question

MehulLakhani

MehulLakhani

MehulLakhani

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Joined
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Watford
Hi All

I have finally got wifi in our waiting room working.

I have a BT business broadband connection , netgear modem, which then is wired directly to a Trendnet access point, which has purple wifi ( social wifi ) firmware on it.

Works very very well.

The next question is how can I add a second access point for upstairs.

The modem has only one port on the back of it.

This goes directly to the access point.

Do I need a router or a switch , to be able to connect two access points to the modem ?

Any suggestions gratefully appreciated

R

Mehul
 
You sure it's a Netgear modem and not a router? If you provide the models of your devices we could confirm this.
In all likelihood it's a router, and you would just need a switch plugged in to the Netgear device and then the two access point plugged into the switch.
 
So it looks like it only has one ethernet port out on the back of the modem. You will need get a small switch. gigabit ones are really cheap these days and then you would run a cable from the modem to the switch and then a cable from the switch to each AP.

I hope this helps.
 
It's very unlikely that the switch is to blame.

  • Do both APs drop at the same time or do they drop individually?
  • How often do they drop?
  • Have you checked it just isn't the actual Internet connection dropping?
  • Have you tried both APs on their own (connected directly, and connected via the switch)?
 
Hiya

When the devices are connected directly to the modem on its one port - they all seem to work fine.

This is why I am suspecting the switch ? From a little reading , I have a feeling I might need a router, as each device plugged into the switch needs its own IP address, and a modem only won't give out IP addresses , will it ? Neither would a simple switch, like the one I have bought ? Which device does the DHCP ?

Or am I getting confused ?

R

Mehul
 
Yes, you need a router not a switch. Something like this is cheap but would do the job perfectly.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-025-TP

Connect the netgear modem to the WAN port of this. Then connect each of the APs to a different lan port. As long as the APs are set to DHCP then that should be it.

Alternatively you could replace the netgear with something like this- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-036-TP (again just a cheap example), but this would require you programming the ADSL username etc into it, but then the APs would connect directly to this.

The switch is not needed at all for your setup.
 
The purple wifi support pages give the impression that additional access points can be connected to port 4 of the purple configured router. If that's true you wouldn't need any additional hardware.
 
bremen1874 said:
The purple wifi support pages give the impression that additional access points can be connected to port 4 of the purple configured router. If that's true you wouldn't need any additional hardware.
Click to expand...

Hiya.

Thanks for that info - the access points are quite far apart , so birding them might be difficult- but good idea.
R

Mehul
 
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