Hi

Is there a way to create a repeater that will repeat signal from multiple ssid's/radios?

Hi

Is there a way to create a repeater that will repeat signal from multiple ssid's/radios?

If you mean that it would sort of extend the range of the original AP? Well, Yes it is possible. But it comes width some negative effects....

There are two ways of doing this:
- one repeater (in wds mode) that picks up a signal and sends it again at same frequency. Both ´mother´ and ´repeater´ have to communicate with each other because when the repeater sends, it cannot listen and at the same time ´mother´ should shut up otherwise both signals bounce in the air which is called "interference".
Side effect is also that the maximum throughput of the antenna chain is sort of halved.

- one unit with 2 radio's. One radio receives signal fm ´mother´ while second radio is just a new AP again. When this AP-radio is placed in a bridge with the CPE (or backhaul) radio than it looks like if the ´mother´ AP is the one serving a client. This is, if the client is able to roam between both ´mother´ and ´repeater´. Off course, both radio's are to operate at different frequencies otherwise you get heavy self interferences.
Some special protocols and network techniques are also used to arrange smooth roaming.That's what cellular phone operators do. Loss of bandwidth is here not an effect but this unit becomes more complicated and thus dearer.

A repeater that could ´repeat´ signals from several AP's? Well, in theory it would be able to do so. But since ´airtime´ has to be shared by this repeater between each ´mother´ and he has to arrange all ´mother´s' to talk with him in a certain order, this means a very complicated protocol and if it than all happens, for each ´mother´ your bandwidth is halved! (So, fm 52 to 26 to 13Mb roughly!) This would become very in-practical.

Thanks for answering.

I was actually meaning the second option where a single radio could repeat signal from multiple sources.

If you do a search for OpenMesh you'll find what you're looking for. It's applications are very limited and the bandwidth/latency is horrible if you're more than 1 hop away from a internet feed node.

You can make a much better system fairly easily with Mikrotik, but unless you have a mobile network where nodes will be moving it's much better and cheaper just to engineer a normal system to begin with.

Hi,

I already use Mikrotik WDS setup to repeat, but was looking into a generic repeater that would not require configuration at all, repeat any signal in the area, it seems that having this would be a performance problem so guess it's out.

Thanks

Hi

Is there a way to create a repeater that will repeat signal from multiple ssid's/radios?

If you mean that it would sort of extend the range of the original AP? Well, Yes it is possible. But it comes width some negative effects....

There are two ways of doing this:
- one repeater (in wds mode) that picks up a signal and sends it again at same frequency. Both ´mother´ and ´repeater´ have to communicate with each other because when the repeater sends, it cannot listen and at the same time ´mother´ should shut up otherwise both signals bounce in the air which is called "interference".
Side effect is also that the maximum throughput of the antenna chain is sort of halved.

- one unit with 2 radio's. One radio receives signal fm ´mother´ while second radio is just a new AP again. When this AP-radio is placed in a bridge with the CPE (or backhaul) radio than it looks like if the ´mother´ AP is the one serving a client. This is, if the client is able to roam between both ´mother´ and ´repeater´. Off course, both radio's are to operate at different frequencies otherwise you get heavy self interferences.
Some special protocols and network techniques are also used to arrange smooth roaming.That's what cellular phone operators do. Loss of bandwidth is here not an effect but this unit becomes more complicated and thus dearer.

A repeater that could ´repeat´ signals from several AP's? Well, in theory it would be able to do so. But since ´airtime´ has to be shared by this repeater between each ´mother´ and he has to arrange all ´mother´s' to talk with him in a certain order, this means a very complicated protocol and if it than all happens, for each ´mother´ your bandwidth is halved! (So, fm 52 to 26 to 13Mb roughly!) This would become very in-practical.

or you can just have two pcie cards in your x86 pc but they should be as said in different frequencies so one pcie 5ghz card talks to your back haul and the other 2.4ghz talks to your customers.its the cheapest solution.