cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

ELI5 guest mesh network? (T3200 + 4 extenders)

Blorchito
Organizer

We have a lot of guests coming and going and it would be great if we could have both a "permanent resident" SSID for the family, and "friends and guests" SSID for everyone else. But the 3200 router doesn't broadcast throughout the whole house. I assumed my 4 extenders would simply extend the range of the 2 SSIDs broadcast by the 3200. Unfortunately, the guest network is only available by connecting directly to the 3200 so the permanent residents enjoy the benefit of extended wifi signals throughout the house but the guests are stuck with a lame connection which frankly gets embarrassing. We've had speeds from as high as 160/160 to as low as 10/10.

 

I thought it wasn't possible to plug a new router into one of the LAN ports of a router to extend the signal (something about double-NATing?) but one of the posts here described this as a possible solution. And people talk about Smart Steering. Seriously, it seems like I need to hire a third party network engineer to set this up.

 

How complicated and expensive would it be to have a system that broadcasts the Family and Guest SSIDs throughout the house so that everyone has roughly the same quality signal? 

 

Thanks in advance for any advice which is greatly appreciated. 

2 REPLIES 2

NFtoBC
Community Power User
Community Power User

It might be simplest to just run 2 independent networks. While you can purchase commercial grade mesh networking equipment, it will be far cheaper to have two consumer-grade networks. You can set up a second mesh with Google's mesh or a number of other suppliers equipment.

 

NFtoBC
If you find a post useful, please give the author a "Kudo"

Thanks for the reply. I ended up spending an hour+ with Telus support, not sure yet what the solution is.