Wireless Access Points

smokmnky · March 2008

So I need a decent access point but I don't want to spend $100+ on one so the Cisco solutions are out. Does anyone know of a decent company that I check out? I just need it as an access point and am not looking for a router attached or anything like that. I've looked around and this is kind of what I was thinking of link but they see to be more about open networks and sharing internet connections with lots of other people which I'm not looking to do. At most I need to share with 4-5 people in a small office environment. Any suggestions?

ToyD · March 2008

That seems like just a wireless repeater, not an access point.

I think you're going to find it quite difficult to find an access point sans router anymore as they're more cheaply bundled together for the home user. But, I think you'll find that having the router built in is more advantageous anyway. That way you can put the printer and other wired accessories in the same central location of the office as the router/access point also without buying additional print server hardware and all.

Edit: an alternative solution is to have a "server" computer in the corner or wherever that has a wired NIC connected to the internet and a wireless NIC with internet connection sharing or some such and have the folks in your office use that as a server for files, printer, and whatever else, as well as using it as the access point.

AngelHedgie · March 2008

Okay...we need to know if you need an access point, a repeater, or a bridge.

Access Point - This device creates a wireless node on your network, that other machines can authenticate to. As was pointed out, you don't find true access points at the consumer level anymore, but you can buy a wireless router and make it into an access point by turning off routing functions on it.
Repeater - This device detects an existing network and rebroadcasts the signal, increasing the network's range. You really only need one of these if you have a persistent dead zone that you can't cover any other way.
Bridge - Basically the inverse of an access point - it creates a wired interface for a wireless network. Useful if you need to wire up devices that are Ethernet-only in a remote location and can't run a wire to them.

Ronen · March 2008

My company uses Linksys WAP54Gs to provide our wireless... four APs spread over three floors just about covers it. Two of them are running the stock firmware and the other two were flashed with DDWRT (one because it was acting up/needing to be restarted all the time and the other because we needed a little more range and didn't want to buy an antenna).

There's anywhere between 25-40 people using our wireless spread across those at any given time, and we're running RADIUS authentication with WPA-AES, and it suits us just fine. The WAP54G is usually around $70, take a look on Newegg.

I'd go into more detail, but it's 2am and I'm going to sleep. I just wanted to post that you don't need "corporate" grade APs to serve up secure wireless in a small office environment. None of that changes the fact that "wireless security" is an oxymoron and if it were up to me we'd take our entire wireless infrastructure and set it ablaze.

yoshamano · March 2008

I just wanted to second the DD-WRT idea. I use WRT54GL's, or pre v5 WRT54G's, flashed with DD-WRT (v24 RC-5 is the version you'll want to use at this point). I still have some WAP54G's that I use where I work, but I now prefer the WRT's because they're so much more flexible. You can quite easily disable the routing capabilities of the WRT and make it an AP that hooks up to your network via ethernet, or set it up as a repeater that connects to another wireless network. The caveat of the repeater set up is that it will not repeat the signal, but rather, will connect to a wifi network, and then broadcast a different wifi network to connect up to. The DD-WRT Wiki has more info than you ever wanted to know about all the different uses.

smokmnky · March 2008

What I need is an access point but I guess since they don't seem to have them in a more "consumer" model I may just try using a wireless router and turn off routing. I thought I had put this in my OP but currently I'm using a D-link WBR-1310 but it seems to be having some problems functioning as both the access point and the wired router for the office. The office is pretty small only about 8 users at a time (6 wired and 2 wireless) but at certain points in the day the router has to be reset for the internet connection to operate properly.

This is a major reason why I want to move away from a home consumer model to something more business orientated. I think I'm just end up trying to product I linked in my OP and see how they work. But if anyone has a better solution I'm open.

Ronen · March 2008

smokmnky wrote: »

What I need is an access point but I guess since they don't seem to have them in a more "consumer" model I may just try using a wireless router and turn off routing. I thought I had put this in my OP but currently I'm using a D-link WBR-1310 but it seems to be having some problems functioning as both the access point and the wired router for the office. The office is pretty small only about 8 users at a time (6 wired and 2 wireless) but at certain points in the day the router has to be reset for the internet connection to operate properly.

This is a major reason why I want to move away from a home consumer model to something more business orientated. I think I'm just end up trying to product I linked in my OP and see how they work. But if anyone has a better solution I'm open.

As far as I understand it, the difference between "consumer" and "corporate" wifi systems is the software used to configure them (at least that's the case with Cisco's corporate wifi server offerings). I could be wrong about that, but for your needs, I'd really suggest just getting the simplest thing possible, which is probably just a WAP54G, flashed with DDWRT if you need it. It will more than serve your needs.

I dunno, I just think the stuff in the OP is really overkill for your needs. Again, we run our entire wireless network off $70 Linksys WAPs. I looked into higher grade stuff, but it really didn't make sense to spend the extra money.

Deusfaux · March 2008

The cost of combo router/waps are so cheap there's really not much point in trying to avoid one in the hopes of saving money to buy JUST a WAP.

Get a WRT-54G (or variant) for ~$50 and call it a day.

bash · March 2008

There's the Airport Express which was just updated this week. They're $99 and can act as simple WAPs or routers. They're about the size of a notebook power supply and plug right into a wall socket. They support 802.11a/b/g/n and connect to your wired network through a 10/100 ethernet port on the bottom. I've been using them for several years without any trouble. If you get one make sure it's the recently updated model that has 802.11n, the older ones were b/g and thus 2.4GHz only where the new ones can do 2.4GHz or 5GHz (b/g/n and a/n respectively).

AngelHedgie · March 2008

smokmnky wrote: »

What I need is an access point but I guess since they don't seem to have them in a more "consumer" model I may just try using a wireless router and turn off routing. I thought I had put this in my OP but currently I'm using a D-link WBR-1310 but it seems to be having some problems functioning as both the access point and the wired router for the office. The office is pretty small only about 8 users at a time (6 wired and 2 wireless) but at certain points in the day the router has to be reset for the internet connection to operate properly.

This is a major reason why I want to move away from a home consumer model to something more business orientated. I think I'm just end up trying to product I linked in my OP and see how they work. But if anyone has a better solution I'm open.

Actually, it's not surprising. Think of the full resources of a router as a pie. Each thing you ask the router to do takes a slice of pie. So asking it to route is a slice. Asking it to forward DNS requests is a slice. Asking it to provide DHCP for a computer is a slice. Problem is, consumer grade gear tends to have a small pie...and that pie can quickly get gobbled up. (I've personally fried a consumer grade router by asking it to handle too many clients at work.)

Personally, my recommendation is that you should purchase a solid small business commercial grade router. Doesn't need to be wireless - you can convert your older router into a WAP. The commercial grade router will definately be able to handle the stress of a small office.

smokmnky · March 2008

AngelHedgie wrote: »

Actually, it's not surprising. Think of the full resources of a router as a pie. Each thing you ask the router to do takes a slice of pie. So asking it to route is a slice. Asking it to forward DNS requests is a slice. Asking it to provide DHCP for a computer is a slice. Problem is, consumer grade gear tends to have a small pie...and that pie can quickly get gobbled up. (I've personally fried a consumer grade router by asking it to handle too many clients at work.)

Personally, my recommendation is that you should purchase a solid small business commercial grade router. Doesn't need to be wireless - you can convert your older router into a WAP. The commercial grade router will definately be able to handle the stress of a small office.

Do you have any suggestions Angel? I know I'm not going to be able to justify $2k or something on a high quality Cisco router. Does anyone have any experience with some of the business models that d-link and others put out?

AngelHedgie · March 2008

smokmnky wrote: »

AngelHedgie wrote: »

Actually, it's not surprising. Think of the full resources of a router as a pie. Each thing you ask the router to do takes a slice of pie. So asking it to route is a slice. Asking it to forward DNS requests is a slice. Asking it to provide DHCP for a computer is a slice. Problem is, consumer grade gear tends to have a small pie...and that pie can quickly get gobbled up. (I've personally fried a consumer grade router by asking it to handle too many clients at work.)

Personally, my recommendation is that you should purchase a solid small business commercial grade router. Doesn't need to be wireless - you can convert your older router into a WAP. The commercial grade router will definately be able to handle the stress of a small office.

Do you have any suggestions Angel? I know I'm not going to be able to justify $2k or something on a high quality Cisco router. Does anyone have any experience with some of the business models that d-link and others put out?

Well, we use a SonicWALL TZ180. It's pretty solid for what we use it for, and it's upgradable pretty easily.

Ronen · March 2008

AngelHedgie wrote: »

smokmnky wrote: »

AngelHedgie wrote: »

Actually, it's not surprising. Think of the full resources of a router as a pie. Each thing you ask the router to do takes a slice of pie. So asking it to route is a slice. Asking it to forward DNS requests is a slice. Asking it to provide DHCP for a computer is a slice. Problem is, consumer grade gear tends to have a small pie...and that pie can quickly get gobbled up. (I've personally fried a consumer grade router by asking it to handle too many clients at work.)

Personally, my recommendation is that you should purchase a solid small business commercial grade router. Doesn't need to be wireless - you can convert your older router into a WAP. The commercial grade router will definately be able to handle the stress of a small office.

Do you have any suggestions Angel? I know I'm not going to be able to justify $2k or something on a high quality Cisco router. Does anyone have any experience with some of the business models that d-link and others put out?

Well, we use a SonicWALL TZ180. It's pretty solid for what we use it for, and it's upgradable pretty easily.

I dunno... I'm going to have to reiterate that for this guy's needs (6 wired clients and 4-5 wireless) the SonicWall seems like complete overkill. Either save the money and get a regular consumer WAP, flash the BIOS with DDWRT or Tomato, and then just use the Dlink as a wired router or save the money, use the Dlink just as a WAP and purchase a better wired router.

In truth, the WAP54G gave us trouble also (slowing down or refusing connections altogether, needing to be restarted frequently) but instead of buying new stuff, we just flashed the BIOS with DDWRT. Granted, I've only done it on one particular model (WAP54G) but I can attest that installing the custom firmware is relatively painless if you follow the instructions on the firmware's wiki. It was free and improved performance a really impressive amount. So impressive that we're actually going to buy four more of them to increase coverage throughout our office and a fifth to create a guest network.

I will also second the Airport Express option. I run all Apple networking hardware at home (currently a tear-drop Airport Extreme router and b/g Airport Express, waiting on a Time Capsule and then probably getting a b/g/n AE), and the reason I'm wiling to pay more for them is because Apple's configuration software is really, really user friendly. I've got a pretty complex (paranoid) setup at home (WPA2 encryption, hidden SSID, MAC address filter, WDS extended) and it's constantly getting ripped to shreds by torrent traffic (legal, thanks), media streaming over wireless, intra network file sharing and as of late, tons of Smash Bros Brawl and they've held up like a champ.

The AE is easy to set up, easy to position for good reception (especially in a small environment) yet is robust enough to handle what you need it to do. You can even plug a printer or USB external HDD into it for easy sharing if you wanted to.

smokmnky · March 2008

I'll try the DDWRT option and see how that works. Hopefully with it not having to run the wireless and the wired connections the D-Link will preform better.

Penny Arcade

Quick Links

Wireless Access Points

Posts