Using old BT 2wire 2700 Business HUB as a wireless AP - HELP

Hi all,

Totally confused - I thought this was supposed to be easy!

Trying to help a mate out, who has his broadband router (PlusNet) - in a bedroom upstairs. The Wifi signal downstairs is terrible(1 bar), due to lots of steel in his house), and he wants the wifi signal to be available outside at the end of his garden (no chance as it is now).

So my plan to assist him. My dad had an unused 2Wire BT Business hub in his garage (it's a few years old) - but did some research on how to set them up as a wireless AP. It's as simple as disabling DHCP, manually assigning an IP, and using a TP link pair, to connect it to the other router right? - It works, but roaming between router A and B gives me endless issues.

I will explain the setup, hopefully someone can help.

ROUTER (A) - Main ADSL Router - PlusNet
IP:192.168.1.254
CHANNEL 3
SSID:PLUSNET123456 (default plusnet SSID)
WPA-WPA2 PSK
Default WPA PIN

ROUTER (B) - Downstairs 2Wire BT Business Hub (2700)
Reset to Defaults.
Booted up, set IP as 192.168.1.10 (I've also tried 192.168.1.253)
Set Subnet 255.255.255.0
Reconnected to 192.168.1.10
Can login OK
Disabled BT Fusion (as not required)
Changed SSID to "PLUSNET 123456 - Down" - done
Changed Channel to Channel 11
Kept WPA password to same as one upstairs

Now - Using 2 paired TP Links, plugged one end into a spare RJ45 on ROUTER A
Connected other one to spare RJ45 on ROUTER B. - TP links are flashing away (good)

Tests..

Connect another CAT5 cable to Router B, and plug into 4K TV. (downstairs)
4K TV said - connected to internet
Test 4K stream - perfect (we know it's acting as an AP, and getting out to the internet)

Wifi Test

Ipad, iPhone, android, Laptop tests.

All can see the new Wireless AP "PLUSNET 123456 - Down" - good!
Connect to it - all are prompted for the password
Enter the password - CONNECTED!
Browse the internet - Speeds as expected, all good.

NOW - The issue!

Take devices upstairs, to ensure it switches to the upstairs Router.

Yes, connects to upstairs PlusNet router - internet speeds are fine.

Now! - move back downstairs, and no devices can talk to ROUTER B any more - without doing anything! - try to reconnect using ipad, IPhone - it gives error "invalid password" - android devices can all see the device with 3 bars, but fail to reconnect. - I know it's not the password, I am just guessing the apple devices are struggling to reassign and reconnect for some reason, but the device is just assuming the password is incorrect.

Tried playing with different channels, and get mixed success - just randomly kicks you off.

Is this a hardware compatability issue with this router, as I would expect a paid for dedicated wireless AP to work seamlessly - just wanted to save him some cash.

I read somewhere, that certain routers, might need to use different Subnets or something, could this be this issue? - if so what do I need to do?

Anyone have any tips, before I throw this router in the bin, and go buy a dedicated AP?

Cheers
Nick

I use the same SSID and passwords on both routers.

Thanks - forgot to mention, this is the first thing we tried.

When we set the SSID's and WPA passwords to match exactly, but change the channel.. Only one device is then ever listed (obviously)

The devices however, randomly see the stronger signal downstairs, for a few seconds, then switch back to the weaker signal upstairs. - then often, it will only ever connect to the 1 bar weaker signal upstairs, and never connect to the stronger one downstairs.

Renaming them, allows both to be seen, but gives me the issue in the original post.

Baffled!

Something like Acrylic wifi on Windows (and similar Android apps) will show you the signal strength of your routers. I would not expect a device to switch from one SSID to another automatically if it can still just see the one it is connected to. I would think your difficulty lies in the way devices switch Wifi networks rather than the properties of the access points.

I have three 2700s working as WAPs.. I have security set to WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK with my own password. 802.11b/g and 54Mbps

My main router is a 2701 - it has a different name, but the same password.

All seem to work fine - most of the time, just a reboot every few months.


I am thinking back several years - and I know my devices are named ABCDE_99_IV, ABCDE_99_IX and similar. I used the underscore _ rather than spaces in the names. You may want to try that on doth of yours and maybe shorten teh length from "PLUSNET 123456 - Down" to "PN_99_down".

I could try that.

Do you think I would get the exact same issue, if I bought a brand new dedicated Wired & Wireless AP from a shop? - my thoughts are that if I buy something, for that specific purpose - it should just plug and play - otherwise the companies that sell dedicated devices would have a nightmare supporting them.

Can anyone still explain the possibilities of why the devices will not reconnect to router B, when named differently (other than a name change) - but forgetting ROUTER A allows connection to ROUTER B (until you join ROUTER A again) - then it denies ROUTER B after that.

Could setting ROUTER A' and ROUTER B's subnet to 255.255.0.0 make a difference? - to allow ROUTER A more IP addresses to allocate?

Edited by deleted (Wed 15-Nov-17 12:16:04)

I think your problem is the ssid. I would change it to something simple.

Use Chanel 1 6 and 11

https://www.metageek.com/training/resources/why-chan...

Plenty of ISP routers can no longer be used as access points since ISPs pushed out firmware updates that enable IPv6 which cannot be turned off, hence the access point starts allocating IPv6 internal addresses.

One example is the smarthub, you�ll get an IPv6 address on the extender AP that goes nowhere if it has the latest firmware.

It could be faulty hardware also.

That should not make a difference, there are plenty of addresses available and all are allocated by A. Leave it at 255.255.255.0

Have you set the DHCP server on A to only allocate from say .50 to ,200 and then give B an address of .210