@Truant19 My KP HR wrote:
Hello,
I have a fiber optic modem and next to that my wireless router (T3200M). Both are downstairs and provide great wifi down there, but upstairs its very poor. Since I have an ethernet cable wired upstairs from the router, I figured I could add an another WIFI router upstairs with a wired connection to the downstairs router. Is this possible? Is there anything I need to do to the existing router? I was hoping to just buy one off of amazon.
Thanks,
Yes, it's definitely possible to add a second wireless router upstairs to extend your WiFi coverage. Here are a few tips:
- You'll want to get a wireless router that can be configured as an access point. Many routers have this capability nowadays. Look for ones marketed as "wireless extenders" or that explicitly say they can be set to AP mode.
- Connect the new upstairs router to your existing downstairs router via Ethernet. You already have the wired connection, so that's perfect.
- Make sure to disable DHCP server functionality on the new upstairs router, so you don't end up with 2 routers trying to assign IP addresses on your network. Just have the main downstairs router handle DHCP.
- Give the extended network upstairs a different SSID (network name) and password than your main downstairs network. This avoids any confusion and allows you to connect to the correct one.
- You'll want to set both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz channels on the upstairs router to be different from the ones used by the downstairs router. This prevents interference.
- No special configuration should be needed on your existing downstairs router. It will just treat the new upstairs router as a client device since it's connected via Ethernet.
