How To Add Access Point To Xfinity Router

Last calendar week we showed yous how to extend your network without wires, this calendar week we're looking at how you tin can use use an existing hardwire network to hands and quickly extend your wireless network using simple access points.

Afterwards we published our guide How To Extend Your Wireless network with Tomato-Powered Routers, we received a variety of reader questions regarding other tips and tricks one could apply to extend a wireless network. Bill wrote in with the following question which echoes quite a few similar emails:

I read and followed your guide last Tuesday. Everything worked every bit promised, just I've noticed the secondary router seems a trivial flaky. Is there a more bare-bones way to get almost this technique than setting upwards the Tomato routers via WDS as you have us do in the tutorial? My house is wired with Ethernet but, alas, very few of my devices really use hard wire anymore. What can I do? All my routers are running current releases of TomatoUSB.

If Neb didn't have the existing LAN in place, we'd have to tell him to effort a unlike firmware (like DD-WRT) that allows for true Wi-Fi repeating. Since he has an existing hardwired Ethernet LAN, however, he's in luck.

In a state of affairs with no Ethernet network, you have to rely completely on wireless engineering to link the access points together (as we did when nosotros used WDS to link the ii Lycopersicon esculentum routers together concluding week). When yous take a hardwired network, nevertheless, things get radically easier equally yous can use the Ethernet equally a backbone for the network and convert the secondary routers to simple access points that require little endeavor to configure and deploy.

What specifically do yous gain by using this technique over the previous technique? In our prior tutorial we showed you how to make a mesh of Wi-Fi routers. While that's a great solution if you don't accept whatsoever difficult wire to connect them, it does have its short comings as it requires a lot of configuration and a Wi-Fi mesh protocol that can introduce latency and reduced bandwidth. The technique nosotros're near to outline merely adds Wi-Fi access points to whatever open up Ethernet connection on your hard-wired LAN—no fancy configuration or Wi-Fi Voodoo required.

What Yous'll Demand

For this tutorial you lot demand the post-obit things:

One primary router
One or more secondary routers
One concrete port on the main router and one direct Ethernet cable link for each secondary router

That'south all you demand! You lot don't even, technically, need any fancy after market place firmware like Tomato plant or DD-WRT. That merits repeating. Although we're going to be using Tomato-powered routers, you tin employ merely virtually whatever stock Wi-Fi router around without flashing the firmware. Unlike other Wi-Fi tutorials nosotros've shared that involve deep mucking around in the guts of a customized router, this tutorial simply requires that you are able to change the basic Wi-Fi access point settings on your secondary routers.

Getting Started: Resetting The Secondary Router

For the purposes of clarity, nosotros're going to refer to the primary router equally the "Primary Router" and the secondary router as the "Secondary Router". Simple, yes, just it ensures we're all on the aforementioned folio and not applying the settings to the incorrect device.

Over again, although nosotros're using TomatoUSB these instructions tin exist applied to nearly every router on the marketplace. Read over the whole guide and and so utilize the steps, slightly adapted for different carte du jour structures, to your router.

The commencement thing you lot want to do is reset your Secondary Router (not your Master Router) then yous can piece of work with a make clean slate. Plug your Secondary Router directly into a desktop or laptop machine via the Ethernet port. Navigate to Administration –> Configuration –> Restore Default Configuration and select "Erase all data in NVRAM memory (thorough)". Click OK.

The default login/password afterwards a clean wipe in Tomato is admin/admin. You lot should change the password immediately by navigating to Administration -> Admin Admission. While we're in the Admin Access carte we tin modify two things. First, change the color scheme of Love apple to hands distinguish between default Tomato installation and secondary access points.

The colour setting is found nearly the superlative of the Admin Admission folio nether Web Admin -> Color Scheme. We selected blue. To change the password scroll downwardly to the bottom and plug in a new password in the Password section. Makes sure to click Save at the lesser or your changes will non be practical. Lycopersicon esculentum volition, immediately after you click Save, prompt you to login once more. Use login: admin and password: whatever new countersign you merely created.

Configuring The Secondary Router

Once you lot've reset the Secondary Router and assigned a new password it'southward time to configure it. We only need to make a handful of changes to the Secondary Router, and (in TomatoUSB at to the lowest degree) they can all exist made on a single folio.

Navigate to Basic –> Network within the GUI of the Secondary Router. We demand to make a few small-scale changes hither. Kickoff you lot need to toggle WAN / Net to Static. There's no need to change anything else in this sub-department.

Next you demand to change the Router IP Accost. This can be any number that isn't i) the same as your Chief Router or two) in the slate of assignable addresses used by your Primary Router's DHCP server, such as 198.168.1.100-149. We simply switched ours to 192.168.1.2 to indicate it was the start of the secondary routers fastened to our network.

Plug in the address of your Primary Router for the offset Static DNS slot. Toggle off DHCP Server. The Secondary Router (and another other routers you may add together in equally futurity access points) need to refer to the Master Router for their DNS settings and DHCP assignments in order to keep the setup simple and allow all network changes to be made hands from the Primary Router.

Next, you have the Wireless section. Inside the Wireless department y'all need to make a few changes. First, ensure "Enable Wireless" is checked. 2nd, set up Wireless Fashion to "Admission Point". Y'all can exit the Wireless Network Way on Auto or enforce a specific mode (like Chiliad Merely).

The SSID should be the same as your other Wi-Fi access points (like the Primary Router). The security blazon, encryption type, and shared primal should also be the same. Note: If you're having trouble with the setup, it'southward oftentimes useful to modify the Secondary Router's SSID to something like "wireless2" to distinguish it from "wireless" (the name of the Main Router) and make signal testing and troubleshooting easier.

That said, the but place where the Wireless setup should differ from the Principal Router is the Aqueduct selection. You want to select a aqueduct for your access points that does non conflict with channels used by the Principal Router. Refer to this nautical chart to select an appropriate channel:

Permit'due south say that your Primary Router is using Channel 1. For your Secondary Router you lot can select Channel half dozen or Aqueduct xi as a articulate channel to minimize interference. For quick reference hither are are some combinations you tin use to continue the communication channels clear and leave infinite for a future access point:

i, 6, 11
2, 7, 12
three, viii, 13

Once you lot've finished selecting an open channel, click Save to commit all your changes to the Secondary Router. In one case the changes are saved, unplug the Secondary Router from the computer you've been using to configure it and take it to the Ethernet jack you intend to plug information technology into. Run an Ethernet cablevision from the wall jack to one of the LAN ports on the Secondary Router (not the WAN port). Plug in the ability cord to kicking it upwardly. Your secondary admission indicate should now be online and accessible to the Wi-Fi devices nearby. As an added bonus you can likewise apply the Secondary Router every bit a basic network switch—any nearby Ethernet dependent devices, such as a game console or desktop computer, can be plugged right into the remaining LAN ports on the Secondary Router.

You can repeat this unabridged procedure with additional routers—just pay attention to the channel yous select for each router to try and go along the interference to a minimum.