Adding a second wifi router / wireless access point

Question

I have an existing wireless router setup and I want to add better coverage to a certain part of my house. The current wifi covers the area, but the signal is fairly weak and the throughput is commonly falls below what I can sustain through my cable modem.

I have pulled an ethernet cable through the walls, and I am considering just sticking a second access point on the end of it. Connect both ends to the LAN ports of the routers, give the new one a LAN address in the subnet, and it is on the network. Of course I will set the radio to use a different channel than the original access point.

My question is: Can I assign the same SSID to the second device and have the wireless clients auto-magically connect to the one with the best signal or I am better off giving them different SSIDs? Do I have to use Wireless Distribution System (WDS) of some sort even with the ethernet link between them?

Answer 1

Personally I would go with separate SSID's. Every time I have attempted dual SSID's without special hardware it went wonky. Just remember to turn off dhcp on the second router.

Answer 2

just to add another router / wifi access point connect the second wifi access device/router to the cable from the origin, means the switch from which first router/access point is attached, give it another SSID,set its dhcp range(different from first one),set its wep n start enjoying!!!!. giving different SSID to both devices also makes u realize which device is having nice signal.