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19-03-2021
In a larger home, to boost the power of the Wi-Fi signal throughout the residence, range extenders, powerline adaptors and other devices can be employed. In a home network without wired ethernet, these devices are the only viable, easy to set up option. If you have wired ethernet in the far reaches of your residence, a much easier solution is to connect a second router via ethernet cable.
For clarity we will refer to the primary router/modem as router A, this is the router that connects your home to the public internet. The secondary router, which will be used to boost the Wi-Fi signal, will be referred to as router B. Routers are versatile devices that can act not only as a router but as a type of booster or relay, if you will, that can be used to boost the Wi-Fi signal.
Router B must be set up to act as a wireless access point, in effect boosting the Wi-Fi signal from router A. On modern routers in the settings page, router B must be configured not as a router but as an access point.
Connect router B to your home Local Area Network (LAN) by inserting an ethernet cable into one of it's networking ports, any port will do. Do not connect router B via the WAN port, which is typically coloured blue. The WAN port is only used if you intend to connect the router directly to the public internet. Now you need to find the Internet Protocol (IP) address of router B to configure it as a wireless access point.
The IP address of router B can be found by accessing Router A on a browser. Type 192.168.0.1, or try 192.168.1.1. One of these addresses will give you access to router A. You will be presented with a login screen. Default username and password is typically 'admin'. Some routers differ, please search your specific router brand for more information.
Under 'DHCP' settings, you will typically find a list of IP addresses of connected clients. These are in effect the devices attached to your home network. Once you find Router B's address, take note of this. To enhance security, change the default username and password of Router A to something more secure. Log out of router A, and then type the IP address for router B in the browser. This should lead you to the login screen for router B.
Once logged in to router B, you need to find a setting entitled 'working mode' or something similar. In here, you will normally be presented with a list of radio buttons that you can toggle for different settings. By default the router will be set to wireless router. Change this to wireless access point. To enhance security, it is highly recommended to change the default user name and password in the settings before logging out.
Once you have completed this step, router B will function as a wireless access point to boost the signal in the remote areas of your home.
IP addresses typically consist of four numeric values, delimited by dots. The default address for router A, when typed in a web browser on a device connected to your LAN is normally 192.168.0.1, or 192.168.1.1. This address is called the default gateway, and from here, router A assigns IP addresses dynamically to devices within the LAN that connnect to it.
For example, typically all device addresses on a home LAN with a default gateway of 192.168.0.1 will share the same address in the first three portions, as in 192.168.0.
The last portion of the specific device address will differ, so that for example router A's address will be 192.168.0.1, your personal laptop on the LAN might have the address of 192.168.0.117, a Smart TV might have the address of 192.168.0.129, a mobile phone 192.168.0.201 etc. These address are typically dynamically assigned by router A, and do change over time.
Assume that Router A has the address 192.168.0.1. All addresses within the LAN will then range from 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.255. It is beyond the scope of the article to explain the intricacies of networking, suffice to say that one can connect 254 devices to a home LAN. Router A with an address of 192.168.0.1 can assign a further 253 devices to the LAN, starting at 192.168.0.2 and ending at 192.168.0.254. In this example, the last number, 192.168.0.255, is called the broadcast address, a unique address that cannot be assigned to any device in the LAN.