Wireless Distribution System(WDS)

Without wired connection, WDS bridging and repeating is a way of enabling interconnection of access points which means increasing AP numbers and covered area in an IEEE 802.11 network.

• Wireless Bridging: WDS APs communicate only with each other and don’t allow wireless clients or Stations (STA) to access them.
• Wireless Repeating: APs communicate with each other and with wireless STAs
• Disadvantages:
  • Wireless throughput is cut in half, i.e.
    • more data flow between APs
    • all transmissions using same channel need retransmitted to wired LAN
  • Dynamically assigned and rotated encryption keys are not supported in a WDS connection.
    • Static WEP keys only may be used in a WDS connection, including any STAs that associate to a WDS repeating AP.
  • WDS Interoperability needs to be considered between different products

Here is a sample to config WDS repeating:

1. config the WDS hop's IP in the same network range

   It is better to use the static IP method

2. disable the DHCP function of WDS hop

3. config the SSID and BSSID

4. config router to use the same channel as root AP, restart and done!

   1. Change Xiaomi Router to fix-channel and auto-frequency.

   2. Change the TP-link(TL-WR845N) to same channel that Xiaomi Router is using and auto-frequency.

      I discover there is some kind of incompatibilities if using fix-frequency of both routers.

   3. It works for me! Don't know why.

Reference

• how to wds bridge
• TP-LINK WDSed with Xiaomi Router

OpenWrt is a common system for Wireless Routers

OpenWrt is Linux distribution for embedded devices and provides fully writable filesystem with package management instead of single, static firmware.

Router dead symptom

For TL-WR845N, the config light is always on and all the others off.

ISSUE: Can not Connect to Wireless Router

Try restart the router. If this works, try schedule the restart process.