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Hello friends, The Teacher here and today we are going to talk about How to Configure
WDS (i.e. Wireless Distribution System) on TP-Link Wireless Routers. Let me give you
a brief intro about WDS first, so you may understand that why would you need to use
it. Wireless Distribution System is a system which allows a wireless network to be expanded
using multiple access points without the need of a wire to link them together. You can easily
bridge two or more wireless access points using WDS to expand the wireless network range.
For instance, let’s say that you have one wireless router in your home or office but
it is not covering all the space and you want to extend the range to other rooms of your
house or office. So, you brought another wireless router and place it to another area and want
to connect it to the current router without using any wire. So, the other members in your
family and workers in your office may connect to the second wireless LAN, where the current
router is not accessible because of low range. Wireless Distribution System option will help
you to accomplish this without the need of connecting both routers using a wire.
Before settings up both of routers to connect with each other using WDS, you need to take
care of following parameters: 1. First, in this video, I will call the current
up and running router as the Root router and the second router, which I newly brought to
extended the range of Wireless Network, I will call it Extended Router.
2. The LAN IP of the extended router should be different but in the same subnet of the
Root Router. 3. The DHCP Server on extended router should
be disabled. 4. You should only turn on WDS feature on
either the root router or the extended router. Now, let’s learn how to configure the WDS
settings and all the required settings to bridge two Access Points together.
In this scenario, as the first router which is the root router is already configured and
running, so I will configure WDS on the extended router that I just recently brought to extended
the wireless range. Keep in mind that, when configuring a Wireless
Router for the first time, you have to connect it to the computer on LAN port using a wire
and after setting up you can unplug the wire and can then place it to other location, within
the range of the first router. After connecting the extended router to your
PC, login into wireless router’s management page. Look the documentation of router to
learn how to login into management page or you can also see the back side of the router
as most of the time, login instructions are written there.
After login into the management page, open Wireless Settings for Wireless tab from left
side pane. Make a check mark on WDS and as I tell you before, you only need to enable
WDS on one router either the Root Router or Extended Router. In my case, I am enabling
it on my newly brought extended router. Below, you need to enter the values of your current
and properly configured wireless network, which should be up and running. Either you
can enter the values manually, if you exactly know what are they or you can click the Survey
button and it will give you the list of all the Wireless Network which are available in
the range. Click the Connect button of your current wireless network. After connecting
to your current wireless network, the SSID and BSSID will get automatically filled and
below you need to configure the Key Type and Password of your current running wireless
network. After filling the information, above you can configure the Wireless Network Name
for the extended router and that name will appear to those people who will be connecting
to your wireless router but will be far from the range of your root router.
You will be warned that the AP channel is not the same as the Bridged AP’s channel
and do you want to the change your channel to the Bridged AP’s channel? This is because
by default the Channel is set to Auto. If you know the exact channel on which your root
router is operating, then you can either set it manually or can press OK button so that
both router operate on the same channel. As I said before, now open the DHCP from the
left side pane, and then disable DHCP server and then click the Save button.
Now, click the Network tab and then click LAN and modify the LAN IP address of the router
which should in the same network of the root network. For example, if your root router’s
IP address is 192.168.1.254 and IP Range is 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.100 and that you
can check by login to management page of your root router, then you need to change the extended
router’s IP address to be something like 192.168.1.99, so the both routers remain on
the same subnet. The only thing you need to do now is to reboot
the newly configured router. You can unplug the wire and can place the extended router
on far place but between the range of the first root router. You can test the router
by connecting your mobile or pc with the new wireless network, which actually is a bridged
network. If you want, then you can also assign a different
wireless password for your newly configured wireless access point from the Wireless Security
page, so the WDS system save you on hassle of connecting both routers with a wire and
it is easier to configure. I hope you will find this video informative.
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