Billion UK Forum

Are you able to advise on what settings to use in order to use a spare 8900 as an access point to increase wireless coverage?

The second 8900 will be connected back to the primary 8900 via ethernet (so not a WDS wireless bridge scenario covered in the manual).

Is the approach to: use IP over ethernet (socket 5) on second 8900, use the same SSID, password etc for the wireless network on the second 8900, but select a different channel (to stop interference)?

If I took this approach, do devices roam between the two 8900s?
I'm kind of interested in how aggressively they roam too, if the signal is poor from one 8900 but good from another, is that enough to associate with the second 8900?

I do also have available a Huawei ap5010dn, which I could use as the second access point instead. Obviously it has a lot of functionality wrt roaming as per this guide, https://support.huawei.com/enterprise/e ... ction=j00l but as my main router is an 8900 I can't use anything more than non-fast roaming. I suspect I'd be as well off with my second 8900 as the second AP.

I realise you may not have answers to all that, but if you've any pointers as to basic of how to use second 8900 as second AP (same SSID) to extend range that would be great.

Thanks

charliem wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2019 10:29 pm Are you able to advise on what settings to use in order to use a spare 8900 as an access point to increase wireless coverage?

The second 8900 will be connected back to the primary 8900 via ethernet (so not a WDS wireless bridge scenario covered in the manual).

Is the approach to: use IP over ethernet (socket 5) on second 8900, use the same SSID, password etc for the wireless network on the second 8900, but select a different channel (to stop interference)?

If I took this approach, do devices roam between the two 8900s?
I'm kind of interested in how aggressively they roam too, if the signal is poor from one 8900 but good from another, is that enough to associate with the second 8900?

I do also have available a Huawei ap5010dn, which I could use as the second access point instead. Obviously it has a lot of functionality wrt roaming as per this guide, https://support.huawei.com/enterprise/e ... ction=j00l but as my main router is an 8900 I can't use anything more than non-fast roaming. I suspect I'd be as well off with my second 8900 as the second AP.

I realise you may not have answers to all that, but if you've any pointers as to basic of how to use second 8900 as second AP (same SSID) to extend range that would be great.

Thanks

Two method of setting up the second 8900, I will list the best and easiest first.

On the second 8900
1. Turn off the DHCP server
2. Setup the wireless networks as needed
3. Change the LAN IP address from 192.168.1.254, to 192.168.1.253 (to avoid a IP conflict with the primary/first 8900)
4. Plug a Ethernet connection from the first 8900 to any of the four ports on the back of the second 8900
5. Restart any devices that are connected to the second 8900

With this setup you will avoid the double NAT issue, and all routing/DHCP request etc will be done by the primary 8900

The second setup method is like you suggested using the EWAN port, but this method will put devices behind the second 8900 in double NAT.

1. Change the LAN IP address of the second 8900 to a different subnet eg 192.168.0.254
2. Setup the device for the ETH>> IPOE (IP over Ethernet) connection
3. Setup the wireless networks as needed
4. Plug the Ethernet connection from the first 8900 to the EWAN port on the second 8900

With roaming, as the router does not have roaming feature or disconnect wireless clients once the signal becomes to low, so it might not work as expected. You might have to select the better signal. (as wireless device tend to hold the signal even when the wireless signal is low, and hence manual selection is needed)

I was too lazy to listen to it all. Doing the update now... guess I will see if its different. If they un-COD it a bit, that would be great.