Extending a wifi network - BT HomeHub & D-Link 2100AP

Firstly, my motivation for doing this was to improve the quality of my wireless network around the house as I now have loads of devices wanting to connect throughout the house - desktops, PS3, laptop, PSP, phones, iTouch, media server, the list goes on.


I've spent quite a few hours on this now and I've done a lot of investigation coupled with trial and error to get this working and I wished someone had shared their experiences.


I hope this helps someone, please post comments if you had feedback.




I started out with a BT HomeHub v1.0 and as you probably know, you can't replace the aerial and it's not very powerful so it needs help. I had an opportunity to try the HomeHub v2.0 and it doesn't work as it has some criticial software elements missing for some reason.

Despite a lot of messing around, the best signal I could get in my front room was 50% and the connection was spoaradic at best. Laptops were dropping connections and my PS3 kept getting dumped from PSN during downloads, while watching SingStar videos, listening to music from my remote media server.

After much digging, here's the setup I have.
* BT HomeHub v1.0 in my upstairs home office (this DOES NOT work with a HH v2.0 as they removed the critical bit)
* Dlink 2100AP hidden downstairs close to the front room

During my trials I had problems with WPA security and reverted the whole network down to WEP, I'll do some tests to see if I can restore the security but it's always worth going back to basics when you're trying to get something to work.

Once your 2100AP is turned on and theoretically working, go back to the HomeHub and navigate into the Advanced->Wireless->Repeater and scan to find your 2100ap, which is cunningly called 'default' by default. Select the checkbox and Apply to tell your HomeHub that it should send the wifi signal through this device.

On the 2100AP, you need to make a few changes:
* the device IP needs moving from 192.168.0.50 to 192.168.1.50 so it's on the same subnet as the HH. If you don't do this then you may as well have 2 seperate networks.
* you need to enable the DHCP server on the 2100ap, I set mine to go from 192.168.1.20 upwards but you must ensure that this DHCP range doesn't cross-over the HH DHCP range that usually starts at .64 and goes upwards. If you don't do this then your devices won't get a network address from the HH DHCP and it won't work. Again, I'll investigate this and see if I can remove the DHCP from the 2100AP and get this working just through the HH..
* Set the wireless mode to 'AP Repeater' and scan to find your home network MAC address, which will enable the 2100AP to talk to the HH - this closes the loop and bi-drectional communication and everything should now work!

I now have everything working just as I want it bar a few tweaks to simplify the setup.

I'll update this post with any fixes I make but please post comments with feedback.