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[DarienA]

Ok so we have a wireless network in our home... router is on the top floor, and I've successfully used a laptop on the main floor and in the basement. However basement besides having our family room in it now also will house a gaming room... all the consoles, etc. will be in this run room..... I'm guessing that I'm going to have to extend the range of my wireless network to ensure that I'm getting a good reliable connection for console gaming... so what do I purchase... a wireless bridge? a wireless access point?

Me = confused.

 

[Marty Chinn]

I think you need both a wireless bridge and a wireless access point. You need a wireless bridge in the basement to connect your LAN there wirelessly, and then an access point somewhere in between them.

Actually the more I think about it, maybe this is actually what you need, or maybe they both work, but this will be better than the access point:

http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=33&scid=38&prid=629

Linksys also has a bridge with a switch built in, so you may want to consider this instead of just the bridge:

http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?prid=615&scid=35

I only recently got my wireless link from the living room to the office working, but it seems to be working smoothly so far.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

The first link Marty posted is all you need.

 

[Marty Chinn]

The first link Marty posted is all you need.

Well he still needs a bridge for the entertainment LAN =)

 

[xsarien]

The way I've always seen it - mind, I've never had the opportunity to actually try it - is that the bridge would sit somewhere within the range of the original access point, and then a second access point would sit somewhere in between.

But this is my usual method of using basic reading comprehension to figure out what a specific device does, it's failed me before.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

That's the one part that confused me... Are the consoles all going to be wireless?

 

[Marty Chinn]

The way I've always seen it - mind, I've never had the opportunity to actually try it - is that the bridge would sit somewhere within the range of the original access point, and then a second access point would sit somewhere in between.

But this is my usual method of using basic reading comprehension to figure out what a specific device does, it's failed me before.

I think you can set the access point to a repeater mode which just simulates the extender I believe. I haven't found myself in a situation yet to need to do that just quite yet.

Don't worry about it, my thoughts on networking as a whole is that it's half assed in design, and thrown together sloppy. They just sorta got it working and before they knew it they were stuck with it cuz everyone was using it and couldn't fix it to be better. There's no reason that networking devices should be this confusing on a consumer level.

 

[Marty Chinn]

That's the one part that confused me... Are the consoles all going to be wireless?

The way I have it set up is I have a switch hooked up to all the consoles so it's like they're on their own private LAN. I hook that switch also to a bridge which will link it wirelessly to my wireless router to access the Internet.

 

[maharg]

It's hardly that complicated. Just get a repeater and a wifi/ethernet bridge. You don't want or need a second access point.

 

[xsarien]

I think you can set the access point to a repeater mode which just simulates the extender I believe. I haven't found myself in a situation yet to need to do that just quite yet.

Don't worry about it, my thoughts on networking as a whole is that it's half assed in design, and thrown together sloppy. They just sorta got it working and before they knew it they were stuck with it cuz everyone was using it and couldn't fix it to be better. There's no reason that networking devices should be this confusing on a consumer level.

Well, networking isn't that confusing at any level so long as you can grasp signal flow. But the alphabet soup of wireless standards, plus the rather vague differences between bridges, access points, and extenders, is a fucking mess of epic proportions.

I take issue with your stance that it's working, though. I was helping my parents with their wireless network, and my dad's an old hand at pretty much anything technology related, so the fact that it was also throwing him off speaks volumes. It seems that the Cisco/Linksys WEP encryption (not the best encryption, but it keeps the average neighbor from snooping) gets all FUBARed in XP, and starts to randomly drop the connection to the access point. (As documented on the Linksys website). So now it's turned off just for the sake of it working at all, but now I believe the plan is for him to put in MAC filtering. This all started when apparently a neighbor accidentally connected to the LAN.

 

[Marty Chinn]

It's hardly that complicated. Just get a repeater and a wifi/ethernet bridge. You don't want or need a second access point.

I think the confusing part is some access points have repeater modes in it.

xsarien: I dunno, I took a networking class and all the concepts in there were all screwed up =) That was my most hated class and the sad thing is I really wanted to take it at the time. Even then, I still get confused with how some of the wireless stuff works. I can grasp switches, hubs, routers, etc, but when it comes to wireless then it becomes a big mess. Even worse is as I mentioned above how some pieces of hardware have extra features to simulate functions of other hardware, but then you have the issue of compatibility and since those features are special, which hardware can actually communicate with it properly.

Ok, I stand corrected on the wireless working =) I've had nothing but issues with wireless when I was fooling around with it. The fact that this is the first real time that I'm using it for myself by wirelessly linking my consoles to the network and it actually works so far has me amazed. I was going to wire it up just because I don't trust wireless at this point. When I said working, I meant like general networking concepts in general, the way packets are routed and so forth. God it's a big pain in the ass.