daknetworks.com

At an office on Palm Beach at the Paramount building has 2 separate spaces; one downstairs and one upstairs. The problem is how do I get the T1 internet I installed downstairs and bring it upstairs?

It may seem simple but consider this. Because the space was never intended to be used this way, there is no existing wiring in place to link the offices together. Also, the Paramount is a registered historic building, meaning that most of the additional low voltage wiring is exposed. Runing a cable from downstairs to upstairs is possible but also tedious and tacky.

I always like to use a Wireless Client Bridge. It's perfect for these situations. It links 2 places together through wireless. To be clear, this means that the second place has no internet connection in the wall. The internet connection will come into the second office from the wireless.

I've done this a bunch of times; at an airplane broker, at homes where the wireless signal is just too weak for full coverage and at another historic building in downtown Stuart.

The trick is that the wireless signal and settings must be exactly the same. Well, I usually setup WPA + WPA2 AES+TKIP for ease of use for the laptops. To my dismay, this caused the wireless bridge not to work. Apparently, it couldn't negotiate between WPA + WPA2. I, of course, didn't know this.

So after an extra hour reflashing both routers and configuring the settings, I dropped the security to WPA-AES. Worked like a charm.

Internet can be used upstairs through a few CAT cables and the wireless if needed.