What is better for a small network? 1 WAP + 2 Extenders or 2WAP's?
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!
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!
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I definitely agree with CraigBeck. My only other addition would be to say that it probably better to not put the AP's at each end of your building. Depending upon your building size, of course, you might want to bring them each to a halfway point on each side. This maximizes signal strength.
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Thank you guys. We have returned the extenders and purchased to R6700 AP's to replace them. I think this will work well for our purposes.
We still have one debate between my boss and I, but we are going to go with my suggestion until we see problems, which I am convinced we won't.
He suggests we hardwire each of the three AP's back to the small switch provided to us by Comcast. Run them all as full blown WAP's giving out their own IP's, but set reservations on each one so that WAP 1 gives 50 - 100, WAP 2 gives 101-150 and WAP 3 gives 151-200. To me that seems overly busy and definitely the wrong approach.
My suggestion was to wire the 2 6700's straight to the NightHawk R8000 and run the two 6700's in bridged mode. Use the same SSID for both the 5GHz and 2.4, with them using different channels. I think that is the proper way to do this. They should be arriving today. Thanks so much for the feedback!
We still have one debate between my boss and I, but we are going to go with my suggestion until we see problems, which I am convinced we won't.
He suggests we hardwire each of the three AP's back to the small switch provided to us by Comcast. Run them all as full blown WAP's giving out their own IP's, but set reservations on each one so that WAP 1 gives 50 - 100, WAP 2 gives 101-150 and WAP 3 gives 151-200. To me that seems overly busy and definitely the wrong approach.
My suggestion was to wire the 2 6700's straight to the NightHawk R8000 and run the two 6700's in bridged mode. Use the same SSID for both the 5GHz and 2.4, with them using different channels. I think that is the proper way to do this. They should be arriving today. Thanks so much for the feedback!
Run them all as full blown WAP's giving out their own IP'sGenerally if you do this they won't act as a DHCP server.
In any case, you should only use one as a DHCP server in this scenario (the one acting as the router) as they'll all give out their own IP address as the default-gateway and that will cause the clients getting their IP addresses from the APs to get no internet access.
Set one In router mode, or use the current router/gateway and let this device do all the DHCP and gateway stuff, and configure the 2 new devices in AP only mode with same SSIP and KEY as the original WLAN.
Connect them on the LAN sind of the current router, this way all APs are in the same net and clients can move smooth from ony AP to another without any disruption.
Connect them on the LAN sind of the current router, this way all APs are in the same net and clients can move smooth from ony AP to another without any disruption.