Wireless overkill? NEVAR!

With Office Depot having a great deal on the linksys compact travel routers for 20 bucks (no rebates), I picked up 2 of them, and added them to my wireless network. To my surprise, my entire house is a big bar of green, and even without WDS enabled on anything, devices are jumping happily to each access point on the fly.

This is how I have the entire thing setup:

Linux Server/Router doing DHCP
1 gigabit switch sending cat5e to various parts in the house
3 wireless routers spread out around the house

Each router has a unique IP address outside of the DHCP range of the server, and each router has its internal DHCP disabled. Each router is also on a fully spread out channel setup. 1, 6, and 12. This makes little overlapping interference compared to having them all at like 1,2,3. Each wireless routers SSID is set to the same name, in my case "Netbox", and each router has the same preshared WPA2 key, in my case "prettyplease".

Now what I did not know is all my devices are seeing this massive array as just one big "netbox" network. No multiple options for each router, just "netbox". To test this out on probably the most finicky device, I used my father's Palm TX, with default config to just connect to my basic "netbox" network with SSID and WPA2 key stored.

After clicking connect upstairs and was fully connected to the little compact thing in that room, I proceeded to walk about the house. Each time the signal strength dropped into the lower yellow/red range, it just popped back up to full green like someone ramped up the transmit power. Turns out the thing just hopped to the next "netbox" SSID that had the most strength at that time. Didn't even drop internet connection on it, since its IP stayed the same across each access point since my central server handles all of that.

I think the best part of this which makes this a great DIY option, is almost none of the hardware matches. One router is a Dlink 634M, 2 others are Linksys WRT54GC's, the DHCP is a custom setup on a homemade server, and all the devices connecting to it don't match any of those brands

 

Probably have been better if you just got an 802.11n based router. Then the range would be much longer and stronger instead of creating some crazy array.

 

None of the N routers are worth a **** at the moment, and wireless signal in the 2.4ghz range still has issues going through and around solid brick walls

Oh, and the 634M I have is a MIMO Pre-N based router, and it was having issues getting to the other side of the house, and into the basement.

The ranges with signal strength is a bit tricky with the MIMO routers. The odd thing I noticed when I ran just the 634m was a strong signal strength, then an immediate drop outside of a certain range. It doesn't have a gradual downward slope of a weakening signal, but just drops dead. Many of my devices work in, around, and past that barrier, so I needed multiple access points.