The g/f worked out a deal with her friend/landlord where she would share her Comcast internet service with him and he would give her a discount on rent. He's cheap, she could use the discount, so everybody wins.
This leaves me with the responsibility of getting wifi coverage into his area of the triplex. Her primary wireless router is nearly invisible from his part of the building so my idea was to connect a wireless AP to powerline ethernet adapters. He'd have his own SSID and should have great coverage within his house.
Unfortunately it hasn't turned out to be that simple. While I can connect to the AP and pull a DHCP address from her core router (and my wireless devices show up in her client list on the physical port the powerline adapter is connected to) I have no IP connectivity. Wireshark reveals that my laptop is not receiving responses to the ARP request when I attempt to ping the core router. A laptop connected directly to the powerline adapter (instead of the AP) works fine.
My basic setup looked something like this (with the Trendnet TEW-637AP N upgrader):
(Core router) <- CAT5 -> (Powerline Adapter) <- House wiring -> (Powerline Adapter) <- CAT5 -> (Trendnet AP) <- WIFI -> (End device)
I then took my old WRT54G router running Tomato and used it in the same fashion (disabled the WAN port, turning it into an AP of sorts). Initially I thought I had solved it, when I was configuring it via CAT5 it worked perfectly but it failed in the same manner when on WIFI.
So now we have:
Works:
(Core router) <- CAT5 -> (Powerline Adapter) <- House wiring -> (Powerline Adapter) <- CAT5 -> (WRT54G AP) <- CAT5 -> (End device)
Doesn't Work:
(Core router) <- CAT5 -> (Powerline Adapter) <- House wiring -> (Powerline Adapter) <- CAT5 -> (WRT54G AP) <- WIFI -> (End device)
I then went back to the g/f's space and eliminated the powerline adapters. Then the Trendnet AP worked exactly as I would expect.
(Core router) <- CAT5 -> (Trendnet AP) <- WIFI -> (End device)
This config works flawlessly and is fast.
So. What am I missing here? I'm not capable of explaining what is going on here, particularly since using wired connections on the WRT54G works fine. For what it's worth I've tried this with AP isolation on and off, with no difference. Since both the Trendnet and the WRT54G/Tomato behave the same way I'm convinced there must be something fundamentally correct about what is happening, and I'm guessing it's because the powerline adapters are not behaving as a transparent (albeit high latency) CAT5 cable.
Any ideas as to what's going on? Better yet any suggestions on how I can make it work without running CAT5?
Viper GTSa
This leaves me with the responsibility of getting wifi coverage into his area of the triplex. Her primary wireless router is nearly invisible from his part of the building so my idea was to connect a wireless AP to powerline ethernet adapters. He'd have his own SSID and should have great coverage within his house.
Unfortunately it hasn't turned out to be that simple. While I can connect to the AP and pull a DHCP address from her core router (and my wireless devices show up in her client list on the physical port the powerline adapter is connected to) I have no IP connectivity. Wireshark reveals that my laptop is not receiving responses to the ARP request when I attempt to ping the core router. A laptop connected directly to the powerline adapter (instead of the AP) works fine.
My basic setup looked something like this (with the Trendnet TEW-637AP N upgrader):
(Core router) <- CAT5 -> (Powerline Adapter) <- House wiring -> (Powerline Adapter) <- CAT5 -> (Trendnet AP) <- WIFI -> (End device)
I then took my old WRT54G router running Tomato and used it in the same fashion (disabled the WAN port, turning it into an AP of sorts). Initially I thought I had solved it, when I was configuring it via CAT5 it worked perfectly but it failed in the same manner when on WIFI.
So now we have:
Works:
(Core router) <- CAT5 -> (Powerline Adapter) <- House wiring -> (Powerline Adapter) <- CAT5 -> (WRT54G AP) <- CAT5 -> (End device)
Doesn't Work:
(Core router) <- CAT5 -> (Powerline Adapter) <- House wiring -> (Powerline Adapter) <- CAT5 -> (WRT54G AP) <- WIFI -> (End device)
I then went back to the g/f's space and eliminated the powerline adapters. Then the Trendnet AP worked exactly as I would expect.
(Core router) <- CAT5 -> (Trendnet AP) <- WIFI -> (End device)
This config works flawlessly and is fast.
So. What am I missing here? I'm not capable of explaining what is going on here, particularly since using wired connections on the WRT54G works fine. For what it's worth I've tried this with AP isolation on and off, with no difference. Since both the Trendnet and the WRT54G/Tomato behave the same way I'm convinced there must be something fundamentally correct about what is happening, and I'm guessing it's because the powerline adapters are not behaving as a transparent (albeit high latency) CAT5 cable.
Any ideas as to what's going on? Better yet any suggestions on how I can make it work without running CAT5?
Viper GTSa