[Jim]

looking at using a second router to increase the wifi range in my house (plus will save me having to add a switch).
After a brief googling it seems this can be done to generate 1 big wifi zone with no cross over issues, is that true?
I will be hard wiring (of course) with LAN cable between each router, I have an 802.11ac and a number of old routers which are probably 802.11g so I think will be best to run it on 2.4GHz band, at least until I upgrade.
Has anyone done this, if so any advise before I make a start?
Cheers

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Yup, if you manually set the channels as different they won't interfere. if you're only using two APs you can pick any two channels with a decent gap (for example 1 & 6 )  in the range of 1-11, three or more and on 5ghz it starts getting complicated as you have to use certain non-overlapping ones.

If you give both the APs the same SSID and security your devices should seamlessly* connect to the strongest signal. The only thing it probably won't do is automatically switch between APs if you wander around the house, so you may find if your mid-session and move around it may stay connected to the weaker signal. If this happens you may need to reconnect to pick up the stronger signal. In practice I rarely have to do this as most of the time the device is in standby when you move and reconnects when you wake it up.

*Certain older bits of kit can be very finicky to connect. Some newer APs are generally much more powerful and should give coverage across a whole house, but cost a bit.

Geeky diagram:

[Jim]

Cheers Toby, I'm not the geek I once was and don't really have time to learn all this shit anymore.
I presume AP = Acess point, don't know about this channels thing tho?
I generally won't wonder about the house while using the wifi so the switiching to strongest signal shouldn't be a problem.
Any idiot proof guides out there that you can recomend?

[butters]

AP = Access Point

Decent-ish looking guide here that walks you through the steps required.

The channels thing - your main router might automatically pick the "best" channel to use - most modern ones do. Get the number that is on and then consult the graph Toby posted up or reply back here and I will do it for you if you want.

[Jim]

Just managed to get this working with lots of fucking about as per usual (updating router firmwares etc...).
I've set primary router (D-link dir-850l) to channel 13 (was originally auto set onto channel 6 but that is very cluttered) so have changed it to manually be on channel 13 as per advice by wifi analyzer (android app) leaving the DHCP enabled and IP address of 192.168.0.1
I've set the secondary router (plusnet FTTC TG582n) to channel 1 (manual again) and disabled DHCP and set the IP to 192.168.1.200.
The only issue so far is that I can't access the secondary router on the address 192.168.1.200?
Any suggestions?

Also I'm thinking about just buying another D-link dir-850l as are only about £50 and then will be able to use the 5GHz band throughout the house - worth it?

[chris j]

Why did you set it to 1.200 rather than 0.200? Don't know if that is a significant factor but seems the most likely candidate for not seeing the router. I have a vaguely similar set-up and everything seems to get by fine on 192.168.0.xx

[slackline]

Just managed to get this working with lots of fucking about as per usual (updating router firmwares etc...).
I've set primary router (D-link dir-850l) to channel 13 (was originally auto set onto channel 6 but that is very cluttered) so have changed it to manually be on channel 13 as per advice by wifi analyzer (android app) leaving the DHCP enabled and IP address of 192.168.0.1
I've set the secondary router (plusnet FTTC TG582n) to channel 1 (manual again) and disabled DHCP and set the IP to 192.168.1.200.
The only issue so far is that I can't access the secondary router on the address 192.168.1.200?

This is because they are on different subnets (i.e. your primary D-Link router is on 192.168.0.* whilst your secondary router from Plusnet is on 192.168.1.*)

Any suggestions?

Firstly, do (or will) you need to regularly access the secondary router?

If not leave it alone and forget about it if its all working.  Should on a rare occassion need to do anything with the secondary router, unplug the cable from the primary router and restart the router with it plugged into a desktop/laptop directly then change any settings, reboot it with the cable plugged in.

If you want to regularly access your secondary router then you've two options...

1) Manually configure the first D-Link router using static routing.

2) Get the secondary router on the same subnet as the primary router.

The details of doing this will depend on the router (I don't have D-Link routers so can't advise), but this thread might be of some use to get you started (second post/first reply in particular).

Also I'm thinking about just buying another D-link dir-850l as are only about £50 and then will be able to use the 5GHz band throughout the house - worth it?

If I were you'd I'd be looking at getting PowerAdapters with built-in Wifi to extend your WiFi range and ethernet for the things that need ethernet connection.  A fraction more pricey, but smaller and less power consumption and they tuck away nicely due to size.

[Jim]

so if I manually set the secondary router IP to 192.168.0.200 then it should work fine or are there other things that need to be changed?

powerlines? why would I need powerlines when I can run LAN cable anywhere in the house with relative ease plus I've split my ring main circuit on the house into 3 zones (kitchen/upstairs/downstairs)

Thanks for the advise so far

[slackline]

so if I manually set the secondary router IP to 192.168.0.200 then it should work fine or are there other things that need to be changed?

Not quite that simple since router 1 (your D-Link) needs to know which device has that IP address, so you will not only have to set your second router (PlusNet) to have that IP address, but also manually configure router 1 to say that the MAC address of router 2 has that IP address so that it knows how to send data to it.

If you want an easy life and don't need to tinker with the PlusNet router configuration on a regular basis then I would be inclined to just leave it as is.

powerlines? why would I need powerlines when I can run LAN cable anywhere in the house with relative ease

1) Most people can't easily run LAN cable anywhere.
2) Even if they can LAN cable can look unsightly to some.
3) It saves buying LAN cable.
4) They require a little bit less power than a router.

plus I've split my ring main circuit on the house into 3 zones (kitchen/upstairs/downstairs)

Very much depends on how you have split the rings, if its only separate fuses then they're still on the same circuit and it may "just work^TM" anyway.

There are numerous forum posts (on other forums, not UKB, although I do remember someone correcting me on this when I once said you couldn't use Powerlines across different rings) where people have not had any problem using Powerlines in such a situation.

[Jim]

If you want an easy life and don't need to tinker with the PlusNet router configuration on a regular basis then I would be inclined to just leave it as is.

Sounds like good advice to me, would prefer to have access but will just leave it as is.

1) Most people can't easily run LAN cable anywhere.
2) Even if they can LAN cable can look unsightly to some.
3) It saves buying LAN cable.
4) They require a little bit less power than a router.

Well seeing as most of the LAN cable is already run, any additional is easy to do and easy to hide and I already own loads of LAN cable that only leaves the reduced power cosumption which I like but seems a bit excessive.

I will probably end up upgrading the primary router to something like a d-link dir-868l or 880l at somepoint and then use the 850 as the secondary

[slackline]

  Lots of fun tinkering to look forward to when you get round to upgrading.

[butters]

If you haven't set up a dhcp reservation for that .200 address them I would do that. In all honesty the chances of getting 198 other devices in your network and being able to do anything are in the realms of the very remote but best practice and all that. Other than that it should be good to go.

[slackline]

If you haven't set up a dhcp reservation for that .200 address them I would do that. In all honesty the chances of getting 198 other devices in your network and being able to do anything are in the realms of the very remote but best practice and all that. Other than that it should be good to go.

I always think its good practice to explicitly limit the number of available DHCP assigned address' anyway and then reserve IP address' based on the MAC address of the devices you want to connect rather than leaving the router setup to assign as many IP address' as the chosen subnet allows.

Can be a minor ballache when people visit and want to hop on to the Wifi, but you do it once and they can come back next time no bother.  This is more involved when you have the setup that Jim now has with two routers as you then have to configure both to reserve the same address' so that you can connect to one device thats connected on Router 2 from Router 1.

Obviously people really wanting to piggyback/hack my WiFi can spoof the MAC address but very few people will want to do this.