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Forum Discussion
Setting up a wifi extender
These products are junk. Why cannot I simply use WPS to connect this to my router??? It makes you use the extender which has lousy internet to go through this.
By far the easiest way to perform the setup is to simply power the extender on, and then connect to the open network that it creates. Then either enter in the extender's IP or the mywifiext page (the extender will intercept the DNS request and redirect you to the local web UI for the extender).
One issue with using WPS to set up an extender, is that WPS typically only connects you to 1 band per session, thus it will not give a good out of the box experience it it ends up doing something like connecting to just the 2.4GHz band, and performing poorly, especially if you have 20/40MHz coexistence enabled and in a congested area, your main AP drops to 20MHz channel width.
The setup wizard simply has you select an AP on the 2.4GHz band, as well as the 5GHz band, and then it connects to both. It also avoids weird WPS issues, e.g., a friend of mine who is stuck with Spectrum, and was using one of their cable modem/ routers, and the WPS function simply did not work reliably, where devices would fail the WPS process 9 out of 10 times. Only reason he sticks with the horrible cable gateway is becaue it does not have a monthly fee on his plan.
Anyway, the setup process is extremely fast (faster on a PC than a smartphone). Just have your WiFi password ready in your clipboard so that you can select the 2 bands, and then just paste your password in.
Razor512
My main problem is where I live getting on the internet really requires wifi. If that extender gets on the internet it is a very doggy connection.
I think I tried connecting to its "network" via my laptop but got a response of "no internet connection".
Regarding your answer, I am not very good at acronyms. Maybe a definition of the following would help out:
"DNS request and redirect you to the local web UI""your main AP drops to 20MHz channel width"
I am also stuck with Spectrum and the WPS did not work when I tried it. Do you suppose I could go to a decent location where the extender can get on the internet better and try the setup there, then bring the extender back home and give it a go?Razor512
I was able to do the setup after moving the extender upstairs near an outside wall. Thanks for your help.