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The achievement I want to reach is to have wifi all around the house without having to change manually between the 2 Access Points (and I did this), but still I want all the computers connect to both the APs to be on the same Home Network (and I did also this, but can't get the two things to happen together).
I have a Technicolor TG582N, which is the main AP, and a Sitecom WL-160I which is connected to the first one by a long Ethernet cable going into LAN1, then I have my desktop computer connected to the Sitecom via Ethernet and a lot of devices connecting trough Wi-Fi.
First I changed the SSID and the WPA password, other than choosing channel 1 and 11, of the two modem/router (Technicolor TG582N, Sitecom WL-160) and doing so I can change room and the Wi-Fi Roaming is working perfectly but the are two different networks.
So I disabled the DHCP in the secondary AP (Sitecom) and there is only one network and that's good, but if I change room the device can't switch between the two APs.
I followed "How to connect two routers on one home network" guide on YT but I had some little problems following all the steps because of my router limts, so this is a resume of the current situation:
- SSID and passwords are the same
- main AP (Technicolor) IP address is 192.168.1.254, didn't change anything else.
- secondary AP (Sitecom) IP address is 192.168.1.1, DHCP is disabled.I couldn't change the Connection type to Bridge as the guide said, because there's no such option in the settings.
Thank to everyone who are going to help. Andrea.
Andrea
Posted 2014-07-22T16:10:47.677
Reputation: 21
Does the connection from the first AP loses connection? This is required before it will merge to the 2nd AP unless you have an AP that is setup to use extend an existing wireless network. Both the AP and the router needs to support this, and if you do this, half of the bandwidth will be used to setup this type of conenction, but then it will transfer the connection to the closest AP for you. – LPChip – 2014-07-22T16:19:57.793
It does. As I said wifi roaming was working perfectly before disabling DHCP. It now doesn't work anymore, but I need it to be only one network so I have to disable it. Thank you for your help. – Andrea – 2014-07-22T16:43:59.863
@LPChip you missed the same part I did, where there's a wired connection between the two routers. – ernie – 2014-07-22T16:45:05.347
@ernie I didn't miss that part. But if you are still connected to one AP you just won't switch to the other. I needed to be sure that wasn't the problem. – LPChip – 2014-07-22T16:46:40.717
@LPChip I'm confused them . . . if they're wired, why will any of the bandwidth be lost? – ernie – 2014-07-22T16:47:30.943
@Andrea I see you mention the modes are WDS and AP+WDS. Do both devices support WDS? Because WDS basically is what I mentioned before: share the same wifi signal across multiple accesspoints, and let them decide which AP is closest to move the signal to that AP. – LPChip – 2014-07-22T16:48:19.747
@ernie that is how WDS works. It needs half the bandwidth to manage moving signals from one AP to the other. Search for WDS – LPChip – 2014-07-22T16:49:01.213
I get that's how WDS works . . . but that's a solution for if they're not wired (and would require both to be on the same channel). – ernie – 2014-07-22T16:51:07.537
Are you sure you have the Security settings exactly the same on both APs? You can't have WPA on one, and WPA2 on another. Maybe try a simple test. If you turn the APs off one at a time, can you see each AP from your clients? If you run a wifi scanner can you see both APs? Does the scanner see them both using the same settings? – Zoredache – 2014-07-22T17:08:54.077
@LPChip The mode is now set on AP, as it was before, when everything was working correctly, including the Wi-Fi roaming for all my devices. So the devices works with that setting. Do I have to use WDS? I now asked to Sitecom if they can send me the updated firmware, hoping there will be the Bridge option. – Andrea – 2014-07-22T17:09:43.560
@ernie The modem/router are wired, the devices I'm connecting aren't – Andrea – 2014-07-22T17:10:08.263
@Zoredache I'm sure. As I said many times I can get to work the Wi-Fi roaming correctly without any problem. The only problem is there will be two home networks = the computers can't see each other on the home network and I can't access them from remote if I'm connected to the other AP. So I have to disable DHCP, and then I have the Wi-Fi roaming problem. – Andrea – 2014-07-22T17:13:30.880
That doesn't make any sense though. Disabling/Enabling DHCP should have nothing to do with the radio functioning or not. Which is why I suggested an wireless scanner. I think you should find out if the AP actually stops broadcasting if you disable DHCP. Since the behavior you have describe is unlikely, from my experience, I think you need to use better tools to diagnose this beyond simply attempting to connect with a client. I would also be probably running wireshark/tcpdump on one of your clients to see if you see anything unusual. – Zoredache – 2014-07-22T17:20:34.210
@Zoredache It does have to do with the IP assignment though. That's probably why the devices can't switch automatically. Probably I only have to set the Mode as a Bridge but there's no such option on my router so I'm waiting for Sitecom to respond to my emails. – Andrea – 2014-07-22T17:22:19.953
No, it doesn't. I have 16 APs in my office, zero of them are running DHCP. No half-way decent AP requires DHCP to be running. I have no DHCP running on my APs at home, netgear & linksys. DHCP simply is unrelated to the proper functioning of an access point from the layer2 perspective. In any case, solving the problem is your hands. My suggestion is to use more advanced tools to diagnose the problem. If you don't want to, thats fine. If you don't know how, please say that. – Zoredache – 2014-07-22T17:25:29.783
@Zoredache You probably are correct and I may have an idea of what is wrong. Probably the channel of the Technicolor could be wrong after the reset I did yesterday, the problem is I can't see the settings of because it was given at me by my ISP so its settings are a lot locked down. Are the tools you have speaken about available for Android? I don't have any Windows portable device available now. – Andrea – 2014-07-22T17:45:51.383
I am not a android user, but, the first hit I found in Google for android wifi scanner. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.smu.wispy&hl=en looked promising. There are almost certainly other similar apps. You want to make sure both APs are visible, and both are using the exactly identical encryption options.
– Zoredache – 2014-07-22T18:12:25.777@Zoredache Thank you very much because you're the one who helped me pointing out the problem. I had to use some tools to see that the two routers were on the same channel (it's a shame that such a good modem as technicolor have locked down settings beacuse of my ISP and I couldn't see that from the settings page, I was sure it was on channel 1 but after a reset I did yesterday it was on channel 11, that's weird) and surely that was causing the problems. I now need to do some more test but I'm pretty sure the are no problems now. Thanks again Zoredache and thanks to everyone else that helped. – Andrea – 2014-07-22T18:37:56.073
Good to hear things are working @Andrea. As for the WDS question, it only works if both devices supports it. If they do, it will make sure that whichever wifi point you are closest to it will use that spot as access point, whereas now it will require a disconnect before it connects to the other accesspoint, causing any stream to reconnect if you go from one zone to the other. On the other hand, with your current setup, you do not have to use half the bandwidth for the WDS technology. – LPChip – 2014-07-22T20:09:20.653