WiFi and Netgear Powerline Wireless Adapter-technical question

[DLCPhototography]

I have a Cisco E4200 Wireless N Router downstairs, which provides great speed with my Galaxy Nexus. My bedroom is at the other corner of the house, and the signal has poor penetration there. Our house also has poor 3G/4G reception, and in fact, we have to use the Network Extender to get call reliability. So I need to get a better Wireless signal up there.

So, I just bought and installed the Netgear AV200 Powerline Wireless N Extender - the 'base' unit connects to the router downstairs via ethernet, and plugs into a wall socket. The Wireless adapter plugs into a socket in our bedroom, and is able to access the network via powerlines, and generates a strong Wireless N signal.

The problem relates to SSID, signal stength, etc.

Initially, I set up the Netgear adapter to use the same SSID and passphrase as the Cisco Router. Using WiFi analyzer, I can see this signal and it's strong. But my GNexus doesn't connect to it, but remains connected to the 2.4GHz signal coming from downstairs, even though it is much weaker.

I then created a different SSID for the Netgear Wireless Adapter, and a corresponding new WiFi connection on my phone, and it connects fine and gets great signal. But it doesn't seem to want to switch from the weaker downstairs signal, to the stronger upstairs signal, when I go upstairs. I have to manually switch.

So:

Is there any way to configure things to use the same SSID, and have my phone seamlessly switch between the 2 signals, using whichever is the strongest? Why isn't working to begin with?

Or, is there someway to configure the phone so that it readily switches to whichever SSID has the strongest signal?

If this needs to be posted elsewhere, please suggest where.

Thanks.

 

[Small_law]

Re: WiFi and Netgear Powerline Wireless Adapter-technical questio

You may want to try smallnetbuilder with this. I recently had a bunch of wifi router issues and that site helped out.

 

[DLCPhototography]

Re: WiFi and Netgear Powerline Wireless Adapter-technical questio

Thanks. I'll check it out.

A little more follow-up: my phone will eventually switch SSID's, to the stronger signal, but it's quite sluggish, taking many minutes (haven't timed it yet), rather than the few seconds I would have thought would be necessary once the clearly stronger signal was present.

 

[kharrigan]

I ran into this before. I recommend using the wireless on the router that is in the highest location. Doing so usually serves the low location well enough.

I also recommend using MoCA instead of Ethernet over power lines... but only replace your adapters if low latency and/or massive bandwidth are desired.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[edoublediz]

Re: WiFi and Netgear Powerline Wireless Adapter-technical questio

Did you set the extender to same said, same password, but different channels? They have to be on separate channels to work properly.

 

[DLCPhototography]

Re: WiFi and Netgear Powerline Wireless Adapter-technical questio

kharrigan:
Interesting suggestion - it might be impossible logistically in my situation, because of other devices, but I'll consider it.

edizzle:
Extender set to sam SSID, same passphrase - I didn't set a particular channel - it might be set to autoselect. I'll have to take a look at that and see if that will change anything.

Thanks to both of you.

 

[Cory Streater]

Re: WiFi and Netgear Powerline Wireless Adapter-technical questio

If your router downstairs has radio transmit power control options; you might try lowering it a notch. This is usually an advance setting. It will reduce the range of the WiFi radio (not throughput), but you don't want the coverage upstairs anyways. Switching the downstairs router to the 5 GHz frequency might accomplish the same thing since its reach is typically less extensive than 2.4 GHz. Also, do the networks overlap? For example are both networks 192.168.1.0/24? Switch them up.

Also, do you have other wireless devices that exhibit this same behavior?

I personally prefer range extenders and those that are sold by the same manufacturer of the router.

For example:

Amazon.com: Linksys RE1000 Wireless-N Range Extender: Electronics

That said, I use the Amped extender:

http://www.amazon.com/Amped-Wireles...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUacUvbUpU1568637

Out of curiosity, how much noise did you see between the 2 routers when you used WiFi analyzer?

 

[DLCPhototography]

Re: WiFi and Netgear Powerline Wireless Adapter-technical questio

If your router downstairs has radio transmit power control options; you might try lowering it a notch. This is usually an advance setting. It will reduce the range of the WiFi radio (not throughput), but you don't want the coverage upstairs anyways. Switching the downstairs router to the 5 GHz frequency might accomplish the same thing since its reach is typically less extensive than 2.4 GHz. Also, do the networks overlap? For example are both networks 192.168.1.0/24? Switch them up.

Also, do you have other wireless devices that exhibit this same behavior?

I personally prefer range extenders and those that are sold by the same manufacturer of the router.

For example:

Amazon.com: Linksys RE1000 Wireless-N Range Extender: Electronics

That said, I use the Amped extender:

http://www.amazon.com/Amped-Wireles...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUacUvbUpU1569407

Out of curiosity, how much noise did you see between the 2 routers when you used WiFi analyzer?

Thanks for the reply, Cory. As to your questions:

"Do the networks overlap"?
Not sure what you mean here. The primary Linksys E4200 Router is 192.168.1.1. The Netgear Powerline Adapters are 192.168.1.135 and 192.168.1.136. If I'm understanding your question right, then it appears they do not overlap. The Netgear Powerline Adapters are given their IP by the Linksys Router. Or do you mean something different?

"How much noise did you see between the 2 routers when you used WiFi analyzer?"

Not sure what you mean by "noise" - WiFi Analyzer shows the signals (Linksys using Channel 11, Netgear using Channel 1) as being completely non-overlapping. A few neighborhood signals are picked up, but much lower signal strength.

Now I may be mistaken, but it seems, as suggested by one of the other posters, that the GNexus is "stubborn" and wants to hold on to any given signal it's connected to, even when the strength of that signal drops significantly below the other signal. If that's the case, then it might not matter what I do in terms of configuration of my current device, or even if I switched to one of the other devices you suggest.

Changing the downstairs one to 5GHz only is interesting, though. That would give me the best throughput downstairs, and since the GNexus seems to "prefer" 2.4GHz when given a choice, I wonder if it will make the switch more readily when I go upstairs. Of course, that might result in it stubbornly holding on to it when I return downstairs.

At this point, the quickest way for me to get it to switch is to go to WiFi settings in my phone, and tell it which one to connect to. Works, but obviously not ideal. My wife has the Droid 3 - haven't played with hers to check its behavior. Will have to install WiFi Analyzer and see.

Does anyone use any of these extender devices with their GNexus, and if so, how readily does your phone switch from the weaker to stronger signal? If it switches very quickly, what devices are you using, what is your configuration and setup?

 

[DLCPhototography]

Re: WiFi and Netgear Powerline Wireless Adapter-technical questio

Researching this further, the "hand-off" seems to be the problem. See for example:

if you move your laptop from one end of the house to the other it will not switch simply to the new AP when it finds the AP with the much stronger signal, rather it will stick with the original AP until the signal is so weak and erratic (<5mb) that it can non longer be used. In many cases the signal may bet so weak that the laptop can not surf the net or communicate with network devises but laptop will still use original AP as it can still see a very weak signal. To fix this requires a manual intervention to force AP switch

Here's the link to the discussion where that statement was made:

wireless networking - Multiple access points for the same SSID? - Super User

So it appears that this "stubbornness" is not just a phone thing, but a WiFi general thing, unfortunately...

 

[DLCPhototography]

Re: WiFi and Netgear Powerline Wireless Adapter-technical questio

Just to provide some follow-up here, I was able to more or less improve the situation.

On my Linksys E4200 Router, I changed the SSID on the 5GHz band, and removed the SSID of the 2.4GHz band on my GNexus. So downstairs, it will automatically see the 5GHz band, and will connect to that, providing superior throughput. It still "sees" the Linksys 2.4GHz band, but since I had it "forget" the passphrase, it doesn't automatically try to connect, and will go straight to the 5GHz band.

(I had to leave the 2.4GHz band on, since my wife's Laptop needs this, as it has no 5GHz reception.)

I have the Netgear Wireless Adapter upstairs also on a different SSID (this is a 2.4GHz band), and when I go up there, the 5GHz signal is pretty weak, and so my GNexus switches to this fairly quickly. Not immediately, but pretty quick.

When I return downstairs, same thing - it will switch to the 5GHz signal reasonably quickly, especially if I sit down at my Computer, which is just underneath the Linksys router.

Hope this might be of help to somebody.