Extend wireless LAN with several access points?

To extend the area of my wireless LAN I thought on buying a couple of wireless access points and giving them the same SSID + Security (WPA2) + Channel and all connecting them by LAN with the same network.

Now my question is: Could there be inteference in areas where more than one access point share the same area? Is there a special technique made for that? I believe WPS () is not made for that, because this would be to connect the access points over wireless LAN, is that true?


Solution 1:

It is sufficient to give all the APs identical wireless settings (SSID, password, security, protocols), but different channels.

That way, as long as you have the APs on the same physical network (and only one DHCP server in that network!), your devices should automatically start roaming from one AP to another. Note that the setup needs to be identical except for the channel (and non-wifi related settings, such as IP address of the AP management interface, of course); if you have some difference in settings, you will see problems (e.g. b/g vs. b/g/n, AES vs. AES+TKIP, etc.).

(I'm using this setup, and it works; so far tested with up to 4 APs)

Solution 2:

There are many mesh style Wi-Fi systems that are built to do this like open mesh or ubiquity unifi, but your setup would theoretically work, save the part regarding the channels. You want all the aps to be hardcoded onto different channels so as not to cause interference.