The Cellar - View Single Post - BLU-RAY

SteveDallas · 07-09-2012, 10:00 AM

Hmmmmph. What's the model number of the bridge?

I've dealt with these in a situation where you have a transmitter on one building and a receiver in the other, with external antennas (external to the buildings that is). The bridge on the receiving end is plugged in to the antenna.

The thing is, these bridges are really expecting to connect a single device back to the main network. When you get into other scenarios, the bridge gets confused at best. (Does it take the first device that plugs in and hold on to that address for dear life? Does it switch? What MAC address does it use? etc.)

The solution that worked for us was to get another router and plug its WAN/uplink/internet port in to the bridge. The bridge is happy because it's dealing with a single ethernet device. Your "inside" computer(s) connect to the router, and don't know or care how the internet services actually gets to the router.

The biggest "gotcha"? You're essentially running a network within a network. You have to make sure that you're providing different pools of IP addresses. If the Verizon router is handing out 192.168.1.xxx addresses, the new router has to hand out something different or there will be confusion.

Bear in mind, all this if good only if you're dealing with the kind of wifi-to-ethernet bridges I've used. You may have something else.

At this point you may be saying, "This is stupid! And complicated! And not really a bridge! A real bridge would just exchange packets from both sides and not have fits like this!" I agree, but this is what it is. I personally have not seem consumer-priced gadgets that do this, though I have not researched it lately. Beyond this you get into custom firmware for your router (like this) or setting up a computer to bridge connections and using that computer as your access point or something.

07-09-2012, 10:00 AM	#5
SteveDallas Your Bartender Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Philly Burbs, PA Posts: 7,651	Hmmmmph. What's the model number of the bridge? I've dealt with these in a situation where you have a transmitter on one building and a receiver in the other, with external antennas (external to the buildings that is). The bridge on the receiving end is plugged in to the antenna. The thing is, these bridges are really expecting to connect a single device back to the main network. When you get into other scenarios, the bridge gets confused at best. (Does it take the first device that plugs in and hold on to that address for dear life? Does it switch? What MAC address does it use? etc.) The solution that worked for us was to get another router and plug its WAN/uplink/internet port in to the bridge. The bridge is happy because it's dealing with a single ethernet device. Your "inside" computer(s) connect to the router, and don't know or care how the internet services actually gets to the router. The biggest "gotcha"? You're essentially running a network within a network. You have to make sure that you're providing different pools of IP addresses. If the Verizon router is handing out 192.168.1.xxx addresses, the new router has to hand out something different or there will be confusion. Bear in mind, all this if good only if you're dealing with the kind of wifi-to-ethernet bridges I've used. You may have something else. At this point you may be saying, "This is stupid! And complicated! And not really a bridge! A real bridge would just exchange packets from both sides and not have fits like this!" I agree, but this is what it is. I personally have not seem consumer-priced gadgets that do this, though I have not researched it lately. Beyond this you get into custom firmware for your router (like this) or setting up a computer to bridge connections and using that computer as your access point or something.