BlackBerry Forums Support Community

kirkgrau · 05-01-2008, 12:44 PM

OK, updated the firmware on my Wireless Access Point and have UMA working pretty well in my office where the Access Point is located. To serve my kids wireless laptops a few years ago I added a Range Extender in our house which is separated from the office (and the Access Point) by about 50 feet. Works great for the computers, but now that I have added a WIFI phone I would like to be able to use the WIFI in the house as well. It is not working, my 8120 loses UMA about half way to the house. This Range Extender is pretty old (Linksys now makes a version 3, mine is version 1), would a newer extender help or am I just out of luck. I would also like to convert my wife's phone to WIFI if I can get it working in the house. Can UMA be made to work in this situation? Are there any other techniques that I should look at? It probably is not practical to string a wire between the building although I could add another access point if I did. Also, these Access Points can work as repeaters, would that provide a better solution than the range extender?

TIA,

Kirk

ricpac · 05-01-2008, 01:43 PM

You are better off using the Linksys WAPs and set them up as repeaters. You would only get minimal signal loss that way. With a range expander, you would only get half of the bandwidth on the other side. It's like this (pay attention to the parentheses):

1. Router )))) WAP54G (as repeater) ))))
2. Router )))) WRE54G ))

That means, with the WRE54G, you only get 27Mbps when you're connecting to it. There's a Linksys KB Article somewhere. You might want to look that up.

ricpac · 05-01-2008, 01:56 PM

That's with the old WRE54Gs that I know though (v1 & v2) as I'm not sure with v3s.

kirkgrau · 05-01-2008, 04:49 PM

Yep, I realize the WRE cuts bandwidth in half. Did not really care since I rarely used the wireless in the house and the kids just thought it was great to have laptops in their bedrooms regardless of how fast they were. Still beat dial-up. Now I just want to be able to get UMA working in the house if I can. Bought A WIFI phone for my wife and this would really put a dent in the minutes she uses every month. Hoping I can get it working with what I own already.

Thanks for the reply,

Kirk

kirkgrau · 05-03-2008, 06:53 AM

OK, got a few minutes to play with my wife's phone (not a BB) and she connects to UMA regardless of where she is. What gives that she has UMA and I do not? Pretty much eliminates my network for me and now need to concentrate on BB issues.

Thanks for any ideas,

Kirk

John Clark · 05-03-2008, 08:52 PM

I know that range expanders have not supported UMA in the past. That's straight from Linsys.

kirkgrau · 05-03-2008, 09:36 PM

Could be (can you cite a source), but her Samsung ??? (cheapest WIFI phone TMO had) picks up UMA everywhere here on our place and my 8120 has very spotty coverage here. As a matter of fact my desk is 6 feet from the Access Point and pretty regularly it will not pick up a UMA signal. Still love the BB, just would like it to work as intended in this regard.

Thanks,

Kirk

John Clark · 05-03-2008, 09:51 PM

I just typed in "range expander" in the search bar at the top of the forum and got this:

http://www.blackberryforums.com/wifi...range+expander

kirkgrau · 05-04-2008, 08:02 AM

Thanks for the link, it is interesting reading. I am probably more confused now than before. I keep falling back on my wife's phone which is connecting flawlessly via UMA, while my 8120 is pretty sketchy. Still did not really see a source documenting the non-support of UMA w/ a RE. I am not really WIFI savvy enough to know how this is working, but it seems like if you can get an IP number and all ports are open with enough bandwidth things should hook up. Everybody here is using BB's, would be curious about experiences with other phones.

Kirk