Secondary WiFi Access Point

[southerndoc]

I have a Time Capsule in my upstairs office. It provides excellent coverage throughout the house, but I'm wanting to provide coverage to our patio.

I placed an AirPort Extreme in the basement and wired it up via ethernet. I turned on WiFi and put the same SSID and password. (I initially tried the extend WiFi network option, but that caused errors.)

Now I'm faced with a situation where when I'm on the main floor, WiFi devices will switch between the TC and AE. This causes momentary delays where it appears the internet drops.

Is this a common thing when switching between access points? I thought the switches were supposed to be seamless.

Not sure how to best configure my system. Ideally I would place the TC on the main floor, but that's not possible without dropping another ethernet drop.

 

[blueroom]

Factory restore the AEBS. Connect it back up and run the AirPort Utility. It'll ask if it can set it up as an extender. Easy Peasy.

You must use the WAN port on the AEBS to any port on the TC. The TC must be connect to your ISP modem on its WAN.

I'm using this setup in out home, zero issues.

 

[southerndoc]

I have the modem connected to the WAN port of the TC and the ethernet going from TC to AE as lan port on TC to WAN port on AE.

I'm assuming this is correct?

 

[blueroom]

That's correct, is the firmware up to date on both units? Are you using Cat5e or 6 to connect them?

 

[ColdCase]

Switches won't be seamless as the computers need to negotiate with the second access point and will drop connection for the brief pause.

I have something similar. I set up the second AE in bridge mode but with another WIFI network name (SID). I set up the MACs preference to default to the TC WIFI network first and then the AE WIFI second. They will hold onto the TC network (or the AE network when the TC is out of range) until they loose signal and then switch to the AE WIFI.

MACs will pause a bit when switching between the two WiFi networks as they renegotiate the connection with the new WIFI access point.. but you should not notice anything but the momentary pause.

 

[southerndoc]

This is more like a 5-10 second pause periodically.

 

[ColdCase]

This is more like a 5-10 second pause periodically.

May have something to do with both using the same SID, or that my perception of the pause is hardly noticeable where its actually several seconds. It only happens for me when the mac switches networks