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How To Extend Your Wifi Range Using A Netopia 2247NWG/3347WG

In this How To I will guide you through increasing the range of your Wi-fi home network so you can have access through your home and garden.

This topic has been covered by various online sources ( heres an excellent guide : http://lifehacker.com/5563196/turn-your-old-router-into-a-range+boosting-wi+fi-repeater) But they all require that you have a router which supports wireless bridging and has DD-Wrt installed. Both routers which I have don't support either of these, so I am going to use an Ethernet bridge with some PoE adapters.

This method should work for any router which supports bridging, but in this guide I am going to show you how to do it with netopia routers.

So firstly you will need:

• 1 router  which you have already setup and using
• A second router which Is going to extend the signal ( mine just happens to be a 2247NWG )
• 2 power-line Ethernet adapters ( These are readily available on the net. )
• some Ethernet cables

 

1.

To start, Plug 1 PoE adapter in and connect it to your main router with an Ethernet cable. You will need to plug the second one in where you think you will the the signal most. In my case I have 1 in the main office and another in a bedroom in the other end of the house giving me signal through the house and garden. You can then plug this PoE adapter into your second router.

 

2.

Next we need to configure the 2nd router which we are using to extend the signal. I order to access it you will need to connect to it via Ethernet or wireless. I used a laptop and Ethernet cable to connect. Then in your browser type http://192.168.1.254 in the address bar to access the router. You may need to enter a password here if the router has one set. Doing so should bring you to this screen:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.

The first thing we want to do is set up our wireless, so we click the wireless option on the left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here you want to set the SSID to be the same as your other router along with the same privacy settings. If you like you can call this another SSID ( eg. Home-Extender ). In this case you will see 2 wifi signals on your laptop/computer and can connect to the one with the strongest signal. I name them the same so I only see 1 wireless signal and the laptop will connect to whichever point has the strongest signal. Make sure to save changes!

 

4.

Now to the important part. You will need to enter expert mode and select Configure -> Connection. This should bring you to the following screen:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What you need to change here is the Protocol: Change it to RFC-1483 Bridged Ethernet LLC/SNAP. You will also need to enable Bridging. This is what you should have after doing so:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.

Finally you will need to disable DHCP, otherwise you may get ip conflicts. Do so by going to Configure -> Advanced -> DHCP Server. Untick the DHCP Server Enable box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might also want to change the Router IP address, Just so you can access both routers if needed. I changed mine to 192.168.1.253. You should end up with a screen like this :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And thats it! Make sure that you saved changes after each step and if anything went wrong you can always reboot the router by inserting in into the hole in the back (until the light at the front turns red) and try repeating the steps again.
As you can see, this has given me great signal from where before it would have been dropping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this guide proves useful to those of you that were in my situation. It was made in 15 mins so Leave a comment if you have any questions or spot something that I may have left out.
Thanks.

-Dan

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