Forum Discussion

Aspirant

Jul 26, 2024

AX1800 EAX 15 subnet layout when used as AP or WiFi Extender

Hi, i just purchased an AX1800 4-Stream WiFi 6 Mesh Extender in order to boost my WiFi signal towards the terrace to connect a camera. The closest RJ45 socket may not be close enough to use the ...

CrimpOn

Guru - Experienced User

Jul 26, 2024

My experience with Netgear and TP-Link WiFi extenders is that devices connected to them appear as part of the router LAN subnet. I did run into one strange phenomenon: one of the Netgear extenders creates a fake MAC address for devices connected to it, rather than pass their actual hardware MAC to the primary router.*

Since I typically create IP assignments for most devices on the LAN, this meant that when these devices connect to the WiFi extender, they do not receive the desired IP assignment. Creating a new assignment in the LAN Setup table using the pseudo MAC address solved that issue.

* There is probably a technical reason for this, but I never sought an explanation.

Once the EAX15 arrives, please report what happens when you use it.

Thanks

malbertone

Aspirant

Jul 29, 2024

Hi,

thanks for your reply, just got the EAX15 powered up and connecte via RJ45 to the main router.

As expected it got a main subnet's IP and once done the initial configuration as AP it started relaying the DHCP request to the main router and my mobile got internet connection and a local IP on the main subnet, with MAC and IP now associated on the router. This was the expected behavior on AP mode.

Left the connection on the cable to allow the reconfiguration and now used the Extender option to reconfigure it

Did not pick up the One Network option since wanted to be able to control the WiFi network i was connecting to and it was quite smooth actually, can see the same original IP was allocated to the MAC from the WiFi extender.

Similarly the IP allocated by the main router was on the same main subnet, so it looks fine, and possibly the issue I had with the previous extender was specific to that product.

Thanks a lot!

Mike