Extending Wi-Fi @ Home - Part 1

Many consumers out there are already using Wi-Fi but alot of people find they want more coverage at home. Maybe your Wi-Fi works great in your living room but not so great once you carry your device to into your kitchen or some other room and suddenly you lose the internet connection.

Alot of people think that by going out and buying a brand new wireless router and adding it onto their network will solve their Wi-Fi problems. In theory they want to extend the wireless coverage but in actuality, adding a router is a surefire way to add problems to your home network. What you really want to do is add an Wireless Access Point, and NOT a Wireless Router or at least disable the routing DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) features on the new router.

Adding a router will cause problems. Usually the internet provider whether it be Telus, or Rogers or Shaw or any other company usually already gives you a hardware router so you should already have a router. It is important to only have ONE single router on your home network. It is completely counteractive to have more than one router on your home network. Having more than one router on your home network can potentially cause a network loop and connectivity problems. The routers will compete with one another to try and hand out IP addresses to devices detected on the network and will cause errors. Some devices won't connect because of IP address conflicts and in some cases, the device may not even get connected to the outside internet. This network loop problem will affect both wired and wireless devices on the network.

There are a couple of solutions to this. If you already went out and bought and installed a router then, the first solution is to disable a feature called DHCP or DHCP Server within the router. You would access this by logging into the router and changing it's configuration. Reference your Instruction Manual on how to do this. By turning off the DHCP settings in a router, you are essentially turning the network router into a network switch. This will alleviate any network conflicts with any existing router.

The second solution, if you did not already buy a wireless router, is to just go out and buy a Wireless Access Point. It can be plugged into the network and should work automatically without creating any network problems. You will still need to log into the device and change the Wireless Security Settings to your preferences. Don't leave it at the default state or you could be giving free and open internet access to any Wi-Fi device.