Hi,

I live in a large house. I have a DSL connection that comes into a
room on the floor where I live. The router is a Fritz!Box WLAN. People
on the floor above me share my Internet connection by using the WLAN
connectivity of the router. Unfortunately, the house is so large that
the Wi-Fi signal is only adequate for the floor directly above me. I
want to avoid installing cable. My idea is that I would install a
wireless router or switch on the floor above me. The signal strength
would then be strong enough to cover the floor above. I have a few
problems though in understanding how this will work. First, my router
acts as an Access Point and currently the users on the floor above me
use wireless adapters to connect to it. Now if I install a wireless
router or switch, it isn't clear how they connect to my Internet
connection. I am not sure if I need a wireless router or just a
wireless switch (if such a thing even exists). I do understand that
some wireless routers can be setup to act as a switch. Regardless
whether it's a switch or router, it probably needs to be configured to
connect to my wireless network and route traffic to those who connect
to it. What does the IP address and Gatway need to be set to on the
router/switch? Do the user's PCs need to have fixed IP addresses or
are they retrieved from the wireless router on their floor or from my
router? I'd appreciate it very much if someone can clearly indicate
what steps I need to take to get the floor above me to share my
Internet connection using an additional router or switch. There are
not that many users on the floor above me (about 4 or 5 users).

Thank you.
Johann

Sorry for the double post. Google indicate that the original post was
"old" immediately after posting and it didn't show up as "new" until a
few minutes later. Seems to be a bug in the way Google Groups handles
new postings. I did a little more research about routers, switches and
APs. It seems that a wireless AP device would probably do the job.
Would the TP-Link TL-WA501G Wireless AP do the job? (http://www.tp-
link.com/products/product_des.asp?id=36)

Polaris431 wrote:
There is no mystery about wireless networks if you realize that the
"wireless" connection is just a substitute for a wire.  What you are
talking about is having a device (wireless AP) on the second floor that
(a) connects to your Fritz!Box via a wireless link and (b) that allows
users on the second floor to connect wirelessly to it.

Although this certainly is possible, for most home-grade equipment, the
throughput is cut in half for the users that connect wirelessly to the
second floor AP.

Although you want to avoid running cables, your best solution would be
to run *one* cable from your current router (assuming that it has at
least one available wired LAN jack in addition to its wireless
capability) to a wireless AP on the second floor.

MVP Jack's website has a lot of helpful info on this and similar topics.
See particularly http://www.ezlan.net/Distance.html

That's interesting. If the Wi-Fi transmission from my Fritz!Box is
running at 54 Mbs and I use a repeater on the second floor, are you
saying that those who connect to my Fritz!Box via the repeater only
get 25 Mbs? If so, why? If the repeater can handle 54 Mbs, why would
the end user not have the same bandwidth as if they were connecting
directly to AP on my Fritz!Box?

On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:27:23 -0800 (PST), Polaris431
<polaris***@gmail.com> wrote:

It's because the upstairs repeater to which you are connected to has
to divide its time between communicating with the upstairs wireless
stations and the router downstairs. Normally you wouldn't notice much
difference with Internet connections because the bottleneck is the
throughput from router to ISP. However, if you need regular lengthy
communication between the upstairs and downstairs PC's then you will
be better off linking the two boxes by cable and configuring the
upstairs box as a wireless access point.


Jim.

Polaris431 wrote:
In addition to James' explanation, I should also point out that under
the best of circumstances (close range, no interference, no 802.11b
stations involved, no wireless bridge) you will not get 54 Mbps from a
802.11g wireless network.

The 54 Mbps refers to the maximum raw data rate. The actual useful
throughput is around half that, and less if there are any 802.11b
clients.  This Wikipedia article suggest a typical throughput of 19 Mbps
for 802.11g, although I've seen estimates as high as 27 Mbps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11#802.11g

If the main router and the secondary router are relatively close and
there is little interference (e.g., one is in the room directly above
the other, there is only a standard wood floor/plasterboard ceiling
between them, and there are no nearby sources of 2.4 GHz radio
interference), you may, as James points out, only notice throughput
limitations on communications within your own network, and perhaps not
even that. Unless you have a very unusual home Internet connection, the
bottleneck is more likely to be your DSL or cable connection.

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