We're embarking on a significant home remodel, and I'd like to update my infrastructure, especially WiFi. I'll be hard-wiring two offices and the entertainment center. Beyond that, we mostly operate wirelessly and I don't want to pull cable everywhere.

I currently have a couple very old Netgear WAG102 APs (not routers) that are simultaneously 802.11a and 802.11g. Having the 5 GHz is very nice when we're microwaving or using the cordless phone: my computer never misses a beat while my g-only phone gets stuck frequently.

A scan via inSSIDer shows 15-20 other APs nearby, with only three on a 5 GHz channel (all three on ch 149; go figure). My WAG102s are the only wifi devices on the channels 36-64 range. (Fortunately, almost all the rest are on 1,6, or 11. I have one neighbor to chase down and convince to move off 7. That's a different issue.)

I'm wiring two locations (one upstairs and one downstairs closet on opposite ends of the house) for wired wireless access points, using PoE. (I spend a lot of time on my back deck half the year so I'm also toying with wiring one outside AP, but I haven't decided if I'll bother. Anyone have any experience there?)

Has anyone had good (or bad) experiences with any particular simultaneous-dual-band, PoE WAPs? I've seen a Netgear WNDAP360, and Cisco has a 1602 (a bit pricy, but I may do it anyway, and they have an outdoor one).

Or, if anyone has any other brilliant suggestions I haven't considered, please toss them out!

thanks,

-jk

I can't help with the dual band access points but I have just ordered a TP-Link WA901ND based on various favourable reviews (except for the need for a reboot now and then - no big deal for me) so will see how that goes. It is 2.4GHz only but does have PoE.

The other alternative I looked at was a Netgear WN2500RP range extender but that requires a powerpoint for a wall-wart and an existing wireless network signal to boost up. It will not take an input from a wired network on its RJ45 ports and translate it into a wireless signal i.e. act as an access point. It is dual band however.

I have that TP-Link, and it indeed works fine. The one possible catch is that I read that the PoE wasn't "real" PoE, but only worked with the included injector. I don't know if that's true or not; I'm only passing on what I read, and I don't have any other PoE equipment to test with. Just passing that along.

Thanks. I'm really looking for dual band, though, and that one seems to be 2.4 GHz only. I'll look to see what else they have.

-jk

I've gone through a bunch of gadgets in this space. My problem is that I've got an Ethernet cable running from the home router (upstairs, in a closet, where all the home wires converge) to the home theater (downstairs, where we spend a lot of time). I want all the boxes in the equipment rack to use the hardwired connection, and I also want an AP to serve that corner of the house, which isn't reached very well from the base station in the router upstairs.

I first used a D-Link 1522, which is "dual band" only in the sense that you can throw a software switch and it will poorly support 5GHz rather than properly supporting 2.4GHz. Eventually that burned out. I replaced it with a cheap Asus 2.4GHz-only router, which has a dumb switch / AP mode. That's currently doing the job, but not as well as I'd like.

I'm tempted to try one of the newer D-Link boxes, like the 1533 or 1525, but it's unclear whether either of them does proper simultaneous dual band. (When in doubt, assume not.) My general assumption is that anything that offers itself as a "router" will not do the job I want (be a dumb switch plus an AP), at least not without custom firmware. I'll note that I have a limited number of plugs, and a limited amount of space, so it's essential to have all of this functionality in a single box.

For what it's worth, the market seems to be calling these boxes "media bridges" or "gaming adapters". See, for example, TRENDnet, Buffalo, and Linksys's entries in this space. None promise "simultaneous" dual band.

If I'm missing something here, please feel free to chime in.

Why? I wanted exactly the same as you did, but found the cheapest AP to be easily twice as expensive as a decent router. So I bought a TP link router with the idea of installing DD-WRT or Tomato onto it. Turned out I didn't need to. If you switch off the DHCP function, most (all?) routers switch back to a "dumb AP mode", so that's what I did. The TP-link has been an AP on my network for more than a year now, and has never failed me yet. It's ethernet ports are Gigabit too, and the whole thing cost me 35 euro. OK, so that was the TL-WR1043ND which isn't dual band (I didn't need that), but they've got dual band models as well, eg. the TL-WDR4300 which costs about 60 euro.

A friend of mine once tried to do this with a cheap Linksys box and couldn't find a way to disable the NAT and make it into a dumb switch. Maybe the world has moved onward, but without custom firmware, it's not generally a safe assumption that a "router" can be dumbed down.

I haven't used a wireless "router" yet that couldn't be dumbed down. So far, 100% success rate across various brands.

For most of them that I've worked with, just disable DHCP and don't plug into the WAN port, and they'll behave as an AP.

-jk

Huh, good to know. I'm just hoping my current setup continues working for a while without any more of these cheap networking boxes burning out on me. I'd like to wait until 802.11ac starts showing up in everything before I buy a bunch of new networking gear.