Hardware Can 2 routers connected to the same modem extend one another?

[Lucifer666]

I've just moved into a new house and it's 2-storys. There's a modem upstairs provided by the ISP which has been internally wired (through the walls) to various ports around the house. Is there any way that 2 routers at these ports can extend the range of the same wireless access point, rather than distribute 2 different access points?

I know the case is usually to wire the repeating router to the first one, but in this case they're not directly connected except by having a common modem.

I'm also not looking for a solution wherein the second router wirelessly connects to the first access point to extend it; the signal down here is really weak and that's bound to lead to tons of latency.

How do most 2 story houses accomplish this? I refuse to believe most people actually have hideous wires running downstairs.

I'm a techie in most aspects but I'm afraid networking isn't one of them.

 

[DavidRO99]

I just use one modem upstairs in my room and then that works perfectly for the whole house. Now granted, this is Romania I'm living in so idk how wi-fi is in Antartica

I've just moved into a new house and it's 2-storys. There's a modem upstairs provided by the ISP which has been internally wired (through the walls) to various ports around the house. Is there any way that 2 routers at these ports can extend the range of the same wireless access point, rather than distribute 2 different access points?

I know the case is usually to wire the repeating router to the first one, but in this case they're not directly connected except by having a common modem.

I'm also not looking for a solution wherein the second router wirelessly connects to the first access point to extend it; the signal down here is really weak and that's bound to lead to tons of latency.

How do most 2 story houses accomplish this? I refuse to believe most people actually have hideous wires running downstairs.

I'm a techie in most aspects but I'm afraid networking isn't one of them.

 

[raulpica]

Buy another router, disable DHCP on it, attach it using ethernet to one of the LAN ports on the first router, ????, profit.

I know you don't want wires, so you can do the above solution without any long wires by buying two Powerline Ethernet adapters. You can attach the second router without having to pass a CAT5e cable anywhere since you'll just use your existing power grid

There are also wireless repeaters which extend a SSID by just extending the previous signal. These work by putting them in the middle. Never had much luck with them, though, since most of the times you're just repeating an already weakened signal.

 

[AlanWeird]

Basically, you'll have two wifi networks. Just make sure they're both on different channels (say, channels 3 and 11 for discussions sake. keep the channels apart.) You can't just connect to one, and hope the other works. You'll need to have devices connect to one or the other when moving around.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

1. Attach one router to the modem via the yellow "Internet" port
2. Attach second router to ethernet port 1 on the first router via the yellow "Internet" port
3. Name SSIDs to be the same
4. Profit

 

[FAST6191]

Are wires really so bad? Also ethernet over powerline exists. Otherwise I tend not to play with mesh networks/seamless area coverage -- most people don't care about LAN and just want internet in their shed/garden so dual wires and even repeaters/wds or whatever else does for them.

That said right now I am in a three story Edwardian house with probably enough lead paint on things to do a passable job as a fallout shelter. Signal is fine when we have a good router, borderline acceptable for weaker devices when we have a mediocre one (a PC with my kind of wireless adapter -- https://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-Wireless-Adapter-Support-TL-WN822N/dp/B00416Q5KI is absolutely fine and faster than the internet and 100mbps LAN but an ipad with an iffy antenna less so).

 

[Lucifer666]

OK so @raulpica , @TotalInsanity4 , and everyone else here's what I did

Router 1:

• Connected to modem via WAN port
• Connected to Internet via PPPoE
• DHCP enabled
• Secured with WPA2 Personal
• Dual-band 2.4/5 GHz with different SSIDs (5 GHz just has "5" on the end)

Router 2 (downstairs):

• DHCP disabled
• Router's IP manually set to 192.168.1.2
• Both bands have the same SSIDs and keys

Each of the bands on every router was set to use a different wireless channel to the corresponding band on the other router.

Finally I attached an ethernet cable from one of the 4 ports on router 1 to one of the 4 ports on router 2. Router 2's WAN port is empty. This was just to test that the set-up works. Both routers were upstairs in this case and it worked. I connected to the access point and could access both routers' settings at 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 respectively.

Now of course I want router 2 downstairs without running an ethernet cable from all the way up. Power line ethernet adapters are a good idea and will be what I fall back to if this plan doesn't work out:

Downstairs I've got an ethernet port in the wall which I was told runs directly to the ISP-provided modem upstairs. My question is is there a way to use the modem as a 'bridge' (I use this figuratively and not technically) between the two routers, as if they are directly connected via ethernet cable? If so, how would I do that? The modem looks to be a sort of hybrid machine since it has more than 1 ethernet port but beyond that I can't really tell what I can/can't do with it. Here are some pics I took if it would help identify this piece of tech junk:

Spoiler

 

[rasputin]

get a router that is wrt firmware compatible, set it up as a wireless bridge or repeater bridge

 

[raulpica]

Nice! To use the modem as a "bridge", you need to connect something like a laptop to it and see if it gets DHCP. If it does, then you can just disable DHCP on the other router and connect them both to the DHCP Server on the modem.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Nice! To use the modem as a "bridge", you need to connect something like a laptop to it and see if it gets DHCP. If it does, then you can just disable DHCP on the other router and connect them both to the DHCP Server on the modem.

Yeah, that. The reason I gave the advice I did is because I didn't think the modem would have more than one Ethernet out port. Most (well, all that I've come across, anyway) only have one that's designated for going to an aftermarket router