NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
use rax45 as a client modem?
Can i use the Rax45 router as a client by hard wiring it to my current router to extend internet to an out building?
It offers 2 modes, for that purpose. if you want it to act as an AP, then you can simply use the AP mode.
The second option is the wireless bridge mode, which takes a few extra steps (in the advanced WiFi settings, "use other operation mode" setting). That mode causes the WiFi router to act as a WiFi client where you can have either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz radio connect to your main AP, and then the Ethernet ports on the router will provide connectivity to wired devices.
Sadly in the other operation mode, there is one arbitrary limit of you not being abe to use the unused WiFI radio as an AP, thus when in client mode, the router will not allow any client devices to connect to it via WiFi.
The benefit of wireless bridge, is that you get significantly better throughput over distance than a regular client device such as a smartphne or laptop, this is because both endpoints will be using effectively a 1 watt transmit power (unless you are in the DFS channel range where the FCC imposes some unreasionable transmit power limits). The other genefit is that you are typically getting a 4 stream WiFi radio, thus at a given SNR, you have potentially double the throughput of the average 2 stream client device (provided the main AP is also a 4 stream device).
If you can run an Ethernet cable to a remote location, then use AP mode, if you cannot then use the wireless bridge mode, though in the second building, if you want client devices to have an AP close by, then you will need to connect an additional AP to the RAX45.
> [...] by hard wiring it to my current router [...]
> If you can run an Ethernet cable to a remote location, [...]
"If"? How much doubt was there about that?
It all depends on the distance and environment. e.g., a friend of mine ran an Ethernet cable from his house, to a barn, and it happened to be longer than 100 meters, thus they ended up with an unreliable wired connection. But a wireless bridge ended up with a reliable connection (2 R7800s in line of sight).
Often it is a bit tricky when getting a connection out to a separate building, especially in cases where things may be pushed to the limit. For example, someone buying a 500ft roll of Cat 6, then unrolling it from point A to point B, and terminating the ends, only to end up with an Ethernet connection that sporadically works due to being beyond the max design length for the standard, and often it can be hard to measure since tools like the measure tool on google earth is not completely accurate, and elevation changes can impact the scale that they use, thus many people end up ballparking it and moving forward with the roll of Ethernet cable that they purchased.With that in mind, Ethernet will be ideal, but if it ends up not working out, all hope is not lost, and a wireless bridge is an option.