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I'm working for a small business which has less than 50 devices on a network. About 25 are connected wirelessly to an 802.11n router which is the DHCP server and is plugged into our cable modem. An Ethernet switch is also plugged into the router, and the rest of the devices are plugged into that switch. Our building is fairly large, more than 120 feet long, much of which is open space. The walls are made of concrete. On the far end of the building from the router, the wireless signal is poor.

building diagram

I think it would be best to run a cat 6 cable to that part of the building and have a device there that will extend my existing wireless network. I think that would be better to have this device be wired to the network rather than repeating/boosting a poor wireless signal. I want to have one local network throughout the whole building, rather than have two SSIDs, and preferably one subnet.

Is this possible? What kind of device would I use?

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  • What equipment models do you currently have? Where, on your drawing, is you existing WAP? Did you do a wireless site survey?
    – Ron Maupin
    Commented Feb 24, 2016 at 15:47
  • The router is a TP-Link TL-WR841N. The switch is a TP-Link TP-SG1024D. The router on the bottom left is the wireless access point. I didn't do a wireless site survey.
    – aswine
    Commented Feb 24, 2016 at 17:36
  • Unfortunately, questions involving consumer-grade equipment are explicitly off-topic here. You can ask questions about that on Super User.
    – Ron Maupin
    Commented Feb 24, 2016 at 17:39
  • Okay, can you move the question to Super User?
    – aswine
    Commented Feb 24, 2016 at 17:44
  • I, personally, can't move a question.
    – Ron Maupin
    Commented Feb 24, 2016 at 18:11

3 Answers 3

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Yes, and preferable; running a ethernet cable through the building and setting up a access point in the low signal area is the way to go.

As far as what kind of device you should use, it really all depends on what their existing infrastructure looks like, and more importantly, what devices you are able to reliable and properly configure. Purchasing a couple Cisco Aironet 2600is would be great, but if you cant configure them properly then they are basically just paper weights.

If you want to go with some Netgear/Belkin/Linksys (or whatever) access points, thats fine, all you would have to do is make sure that the SSID's are configured identically (same name, security, exc.) on both access points, and wireless devices will take care of bouncing between the two.

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  • What other details about the infrastructure would be helpful to provide a better answer? I didn't realize that I could just use another identically configured access point that simply. I assumed that would confuse things. Thanks, that's a good idea.
    – aswine
    Commented Feb 24, 2016 at 17:40
  • Well I was kind of just throwing that out there as something to think about. Usually in the network I manage if I have 5 Aruba access points with an Aruba wireless controller I would not throw a Cisco access point in the mix. Not only would that not mesh and cause an administrative headache, my OCD would kick off and I would twitch every time I saw it.
    – Joe
    Commented Feb 24, 2016 at 18:44
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Yes the best way is the cabling with cat6 UTP cable. Second way is to try the power line ethernet. This will be send the data over the electric cable and you need to plug into a power outlet. Try to search for this solution.

hope it's helped.

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I ended up using a router in bridge mode. Joe's answer pushed me in the right direction: "all you would have to do is make sure that the SSID's are configured identically (same name, security, exc.) on both access points, and wireless devices will take care of bouncing between the two."

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