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Forum Discussion
Configuration question
I get internet from Bell Canada through a wireless router that covers my living room. I use a Powerline 500 to get signal into my bedroom - which is accessed through a narrow corridor from the living...
I am trying to make myself clear: 1/ my goal is to move from the livingroom to the bedroom without having to move from the Bell network to the Netgear network. 2/ if The device I have is not a router, why is my iPad switched to a Netgear WiFi network when I move to the bedroom?
Gabriel_Iordach wrote:
if The device I have is not a router, why is my iPad switched to a Netgear WiFi network when I move to the bedroom?
Your portable device is doing what it is designed to do. It is switching from one wifi source to another one that is providing a better signal.
Think of it this way, you have two wifi sources. You probably did this because the main wifi source isn't strong enough in the bedroom. As you walk from one wifi source to the other, your device has to switch sources.
Somewhere between the two it will see equal signals. There will also be an overlap region where either source will deliver a decent connection. It is down to your device to make the decision, not the sources. They just sit there chucking out the Internet for you to connect to.
The fact that you have trouble may be down to the mobile device rather than the wifi sources. So maybe Apple should also get some of your understandable anger.
Some people suggest using the same SSID and password for nearby wifi sources. This can be a bad idea because mobile devices can get confused and "hunt" between the two. They don't know which one to latch on to. (That's probably why adds _EXT to SSIDs for extended networks.) Certainly try that, I always use the same password for different local SSIDs, but be prepared for disappointment.
A properly configured mobile wifi device will quickly connect to the best signal it sees. It will also remember wifi sources that it has seen and will connect to the best source with no intervention and without you noticing that anything has happened. That is how my Android devices work with the various powerline plugs and routers I run. (Mine is complicated by having two separate phone lines and internet services.)
From the symptoms you describe, your problem is not just the wifi sources. But my first suggestion would be to investigate the settings on your portable wifi devices. There aren't many iPeople here, so you might want to consult other Apple places for help with configuring wifi on your devices.
By the way, which Netgear genie are you talking about? There is a confusing choice of genies: desktop (Windows), Android, iThing. Unfortunately, they might not play nicely with hardware that isn't Netgear.
What you say makes a lot of sense, and I agree with you that some of the anger is misplaced... until I remember that a product should be designed in such a way as to minimise client frustration... (I can tell you there's aton of frustration).
This issue can be adressed in two different ways:
1/ The solution I propose: (I call it good network design): here the Powerline acts as an Access Point. There has to be a good design where I don't have to go for the same SSID for two networks... I see your point about the device getting confused on choosing between the two.
2/ Good device design, where the stupid HP PC/iPad/HTC or Samsung smartphones know that therre are 2, or 3 or 5 networks that are used in the same locale, checks the strength of each, and seamlessly hops between them to give me the best signal. I guess that in the current implementation the devices moves from a network when the signal strength gets to be about zero... I agree with you that from an ecosystem perspective, this is the right place to fix/address the issue. My assumption is that this is a sympton of growing pain (i.e. will get fixed in another 5 to 10 years when new protocols / standards emmerge).
Therefore, yes: APPLE sucks (and HP and HTC, and Samsung, and then again Apple - we have lots of devices ). However, please remember that I wasted my time trying to get past the admin login screen in the Genie app, so some of the anger is justified.
Also: do you have any thoughts about why I cannot log into the Genie admin account? I've done this using the browser (the 192.168.2.26 thing)... just not using the Genie software (only used the PC version of the software).
To summarize:
1/ I will try to play with the iPad/windows/android software and see if there's anything there to make the respective devices jump networks faster/earlier, and
2/ I will try anything you tell me to do in Gennie to get past the admin login screen,
3/ if all falls, I will try to have the sameSSID on the Netgear network as the one currently on the Bell network (and use the same credentials - as I understand it, this is what the same SSID thing is).
Thank you for your help,
Gabriel
More clarity:
1/ My concern is that I have to manually get the devices to hop from the Bell network to the Netgear one. If they'd do this on their own will (at the right time) I'd be happy.
2/ Would buying a newer powerline thing help? What would you recommend?
G
More clarity:
1/ My concern is that I have to manually get the devices to hop from the Bell network to the Netgear one. If they'd do this on their own will (at the right time) I'd be happy.
2/ Would buying a newer powerline thing help? What would you recommend?
G
Gabriel_Iordach wrote:More clarity:
1/ My concern is that I have to manually get the devices to hop from the Bell network to the Netgear one. If they'd do this on their own will (at the right time) I'd be happy.
That should not be necessary. My wifi devices happily connect to whichever of several wifi networks they visit. They do it automatically. No manual intervention needed.
The two networks you talk about are a red herring. They both track back to the same router.
You will always have as many "networks" as you have wifi devices. Work out how to get your devices to behave and you can happily forget that there are these "separate" networks.
Different powerplugs, or any other wifi devices, will all do the same thing. That's how wifi works.
Did you try giving them the same SSID and password for these "networks"?
You may be one of those people for whom this works great.You just have to this knowing what you are up to.
When BT sends customers a modem, it is set up so that both 2.4G and 5G wifi share the same SSID and password. Some people don't like this, which is one reason why they bin their BT hardware. For other it is irrelevant.
Again, a lot depends on the devices you are using. In this case, Netgear is not in control of what happens.
michaelkenward wrote:That should not be necessary. My wifi devices happily connect to whichever of several wifi networks they visit. They do it automatically. No manual intervention needed.
At the risk of adding some confusion to the discussion, there are pros and cons to using the same SSID throughout a home network vs different SSIDs. I just wrote about it here. In short, it's less seamless for a device to switch to a different SSID, but having different SSIDs can be beneficial for keeping devices on certain frequencies. For example, I use separate SSIDs for my 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. My Access Points broadcast the same SSIDs as my router, too. Hopefully, that makes sense.
