what is wireless access point?

[rnln]

Hi everyone,
As far as I know, there is a wifi extender and the access point. The wifi extender is using wifi from router to the extender, then wifi from extender to devices such as computer, laptop, smart phone, TV, etc. Access point is wire from router to the access point, then wifi from access point to devices. Now, what is wireless access point? Isn't it another name for the wifi extender?
Can someone with the knowledge/experience explain this?
Thanks in advance.

[id10t]

an access point and a wireless access point are the same thing.


A AP/WAP connects to network via hardwire, and acts as a bridge (change in physical medium) on your network to the wireless clients.

An extender acts as both a wireless client (to connect to your network) and as an access point (to rebroadcast your signal). Not really a bridge in a pure network sense (physical media is still wireless) but it is on a different channel so kinda a bridge.

[Zeke]

All the techies will have a long explanation but in short it's not a wifi extender as in another device picking up the router signal wirelessly and sending it back out. It's simply a wired device to send and receive wifi signals. The AP is called wireless because it's wireless to your device, not wireless to your router.

As I figured, someone types faster.

[masraum]

(primarily home use specifically) Back in the day, there were modems, routers, and APs, and they were mostly 2 separate devices, sometimes 3 separate devices. At some point very early on, they were mostly combined into a single device. A modem will convert a technology like DSL or cable to ethernet usually. A router allows the connecting of separate layer 3 networks together (connect your home network to your ISP network). And an AP or WAP connects to your router and then allows devices to live on your home network via wifi. Today, all 3 functions are mostly combined into a single device. It's been years since I had any separation between the 3 devices.

In an enterprise environment, there are still WAPs (commonly called AP) that are separate from the businesses main wired network. So if you worked for a large corp, in the office you may have PCs or VDI clients at your desk, but you may be able to connect laptops, tablets, or phones to a corporate wifi network. That connectivity is likely via a large network of WAPs that are usually segregated from the wired network of PCs.

[rnln]

so I am not out of date yet. Someone just added the word "wireless" to "access point" make the device sounds better?
Thanks guys.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by rnln

so I am not out of date yet. Someone just added the word "wireless" to "access point" make the device sounds better?
Thanks guys.

Yes, AP is just a shorter way of saying WAP.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by masraum

Yes, AP is just a of saying WAP.

That's when a shorter TLA replaces the longer TLA
and yer a geek ...

If there was just a point, would the OLA then just be a P?

HTH ... or not

Welcome back again ...

[rnln]

I am a heavy user, working from home and dealing with millions records up down all the time. 3 kids with phones and laptops using internet daily.

I am using TP-Link archer AX3000 router, which goes to a kind of old extender. The slowest laptop is getting 80mb (speed) on a good day but not consistent and they are complaining all the time. I try to set it up as an access point but speed doesn't change, looks like firmware is old but somehow I can't update firmware.

Does anyone experience a good access point which works well with my router?
Thanks again.

[Gogar]

I have a TPlink box that can be an "extender" or an"access point."

Access point requires a cat wire from the router but it's much better and shares the same network name as the original.

If you set it up as "extender" it only templates the crappy WiFi it receives, which is usually slow, and has "EXT" on the end of the network name.

As an access point it'll do about 900mbps in both directions.

[John Rogers]

I had 4 extenders or access points in my house because it is on a fairly steep hill so there are THREE levels and pipes and wires everywhere that prevents the main router for seeing much of the house. BUT then I just installed a new router or "mesh system" with three of these cylinder looking things. There is a little green LED on the bottom telling me all is ok.

But what surprised me was the main part as in the picture and one in the corner of living room and the other in the hallway upstairs and as soon as I plugged them in....connection!
I was asked network name, admin name, admin password and that was it! All security setting actually matched my older ones with several new items, the best being the ability to turn on synchronous data so transmit and/or receive make my lan feel much faster!
John Rogers the oldracer

[rnln]

I heard that mesh is just simply the same as signal extender except that it can have multiple one so it can cover more areas. The losing speed over the wireless connection is still there.
Mine current one can be set up as an extender or access point, but for some reasons, when I set it up as an access point, I don't gain speed at all. Therefore, I am thinking about getting a new/better access point.

Originally Posted by John Rogers

I had 4 extenders or access points in my house because it is on a fairly steep hill so there are THREE levels and pipes and wires everywhere that prevents the main router for seeing much of the house. BUT then I just installed a new router or "mesh system" with three of these cylinder looking things. There is a little green LED on the bottom telling me all is ok.

But what surprised me was the main part as in the picture and one in the corner of living room and the other in the hallway upstairs and as soon as I plugged them in....connection!
I was asked network name, admin name, admin password and that was it! All security setting actually matched my older ones with several new items, the best being the ability to turn on synchronous data so transmit and/or receive make my lan feel much faster!
John Rogers the oldracer

[cabmandone]

Originally Posted by rnln

I heard that mesh is just simply the same as signal extender except that it can have multiple one so it can cover more areas. The losing speed over the wireless connection is still there.
Mine current one can be set up as an extender or access point, but for some reasons, when I set it up as an access point, I don't gain speed at all. Therefore, I am thinking about getting a new/better access point.

I don't really notice any loss of speed on my mesh network. But then again, I don't walk around doing speed tests so there's that. The reason I went mesh is because I don't jump from AP to AP with mesh.

[id10t]

Originally Posted by cabmandone

I don't really notice any loss of speed on my mesh network. But then again, I don't walk around doing speed tests so there's that. The reason I went mesh is because I don't jump from AP to AP with mesh.

Well, you do but it is (closer to) seamless instead of a disconnect/reconnect

[John Rogers]

Next to security I guess speed is important? Well my new "mesh" system picked up the ROKU box and that box decided that the wireless signal was faster than the cat6 wire to the bedroom. My special test was to connect each one and then start YouTube and the starting graphics speed is easily judged to be loading faster with wireless!
John Rogers the oldracer

[cabmandone]

Originally Posted by id10t

Well, you do but it is (closer to) seamless instead of a disconnect/reconnect

Right. I should have worded that better. It seems pretty seamless to me. If I make a jump I'm not noticing it when going from house to barn to shop to anywhere on my 2 acre property.

[John Rogers]

Since I took some time and actually read the instructions for the "mesh" install and what sort of limits it has such as total coverage area or straight-line distance between the modules and the system I bought covers about 7500 sq ft (forget distances) so in testing I went out to the back edge of my yard and oh boy signal was still as strong as if I was under a node! I mounted the upstairs node so it is over top of my garage. Low and behold my signal in the garage is also great. That includes the drill press, lathe/mill and welder all running at same time! I never had that before.

If I had a detached garage and or workshop, I would buy a 4th unit just to be sure of 100% coverage. I did note the plastic cylinder is NOT water-proof or dust proof ETC. I would figure this works better than digging and burying a cat5/6 cable.

Now why did the old guy post all this, well I hope to provide a tad bit of help to those that are not super techy type and keep you from having on a neighbor or God forbit call the Geek Squad! Remember that the admin userid and password need to be unusual enough to prevent hacking and changed periodically, every 6 months of so.
John Rogers the oldracer

[rnln]

I finally got a TP-Link eat653 Omada access point. It is mesh capable but I am not setting it as mesh. I ran a 50' cable to it and call it the day. Haven't heard any complain from my kids for several days now. I guess I am done.
Thanks guys.

[spuggy]

Heh. You seem to have it sorted now, but I typed this out before I noticed, so posting it anyway...

Originally Posted by rnln

I heard that mesh is just simply the same as signal extender except that it can have multiple one so it can cover more areas. The losing speed over the wireless connection is still there.
Mine current one can be set up as an extender or access point, but for some reasons, when I set it up as an access point, I don't gain speed at all. Therefore, I am thinking about getting a new/better access point.

1. You can have as many signal extenders as you like. If you set them up with the same SSID/password, "roaming" between them is seamless. Or you can choose to set them up with any SSIDs/creds you like. Not sure of the appeal for that - any half-decent router allows network segregation to different VLANs, eg to land different WiFi SSIDs/networks on different physical interfaces/networks.

The only thing "special" about "mesh" setups, is that they may provide a dedicated backhaul channel for them to communicate directly without consuming "user" bandwidth. (This might be part of the reason they call them "mesh" setups, dunno - all my extenders, and about 100% of the corporate WiFi networks I've dealt with are hard-wired because allowing C&C on a WiFi interface is just opening an totally unnecessary attack surface).

Which segues neatly into:

2. If your WiFi extender isn't using a hard-wired ethernet connection to the router AP, then, if a single connection is pushing the wifi connection to full chat, 50% of the wifi bandwidth is occupied by your device "talking" to the AP - and the other 50% is used by the extender AP relaying your packets to the router AP.

And yes, if one of your user devices is doing that - and the extender doesn't support MU-MIMO - then any other users on the same segment are going to be pretty ticked while that is going on. Because without MU-MIMO, WiFi has to use CSMA/CA (radios are half-duplex - can't listen while transmitting or vice versa) - and have wait for a gap, or "quiet time", in the traffic to send a packet.

So pull some cat5/6 and connect the extender directly. Then the WiFi connection will have the full wifi bandwidth it's capable of shared purely between user devices - for the given connection type/quality (dependent on the radios and chipsets available on both sides, as well as where you are physically relative to the AP).

Which isn't to say that a modern WiFi AP as an extender wouldn't provide massively better performance, compared to what you currently have. Beamforning, bandsteering and MU-MIMO are all technologies - along with faster radio specifications/protocols - that your older AP may simply not have, depending on just how old it is. Even the number of MIMOs in the chipset the device it built on affects the maximum number of simultaneous (as opposed to sequential) radio conversations it can support.

Always given that your device actually "roams" between the WiFI APs correctly. There are plenty of utilities to show wifi connection strength, channel and the MAC of the interface you're actually connected to. I mention that because I've seen some (usually older) devices that tend to hang on to an existing connection to an SSID despite there now being a closer/stronger one with a better S/N available that they could seamlessly switch to - but choose not to.