Wireless Bridge Setup Help

cgwu

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Oct 20, 2010
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I am a complete noob at networking and would appreciate any help/advice you guys can offer.

I currently live in an apartment complex which offers free wireless for two devices. I registered the mac address of my desktop pc and can connect to the wireless network using a usb wireless adapter. I was told by the apartment manager that I can register a router as my second device in order to connect my ps3, xbox, wii, laptop, etc to the router.

I bought a router and all my attempts of connecting it to the wireless network has failed. The instructions and installation CD assume I'm using a wall connection/modem so it is unclear to me how to connect my router to the apartment complex's wireless network (their router).

After doing some more digging, geeksquad kindly told me that I need a wireless bridge to pull in the wireless signal, and then connect the router to the bridge. I now have the Cisco WET61N bridge and the Cisco E1000 router but still have difficulty in setting things up.

I'm not sure which device I need to configure first. I tried either one and the setup CD was not useful because again, it assumes I'm using a wall connection. Do I need to manually configure both devices in order to have it hooked up to apartment's wireless network? If anyone has any ideas and can provide me with some simple instructions I would really appreciate it. I've wasted so much time messing with this already :(
 

KingArcher

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May 19, 2010
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The first device you have to setup is the wireless bridge.
Reset WET610N by pressing the reset button on the back for 5 seconds.

■ Connect a computer to the Ethernet port of the wireless bridge.
Wait for a minute or until the computer says that it has a limited connectivity for the local area network.
At this point you should be able to Run the CD which came with the wireless bridge to assist you further. Or
open your browser and type into the address bar 169.254.1.250 and press enter
It will prompt for username/password. Leave username: blank and password is admin
You should be at the Basic Setup page.
■select Wireless > Basic Wireless Settings and for Configuration View select "manual"

Type in the SSID given for the wireless network [The wireless network name].
Note: This is case sensitive so you have to make sure you type is exactly as it is given or shown in the wireless networks List.
ex. Network is not same as NETWORK or NetWork.

■If the wireless network is Security enabled, select the same security as well and type in the password/passphrase.

Save Settings
Switch off the Wireless Bridge and wait for a minute. Switch it back on.
Wait until the device is ready and check if the computer connected is able to get internet access.
[Assuming you have already registered the wireless mac of the bridge with the apartment complex manager]

Once you get this working, you can start configuring the router.
I hope I didn't leave out anything.

Hope this helped
Regards
KingArcher
 

cgwu

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Oct 20, 2010
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Thanks for your reply KingArcher. I actually did something just like that based on the forum I found here:

http://homecommunity.cisco.com/t5/Wireless-Routers/No-Router-Available-to-connect-to-during-setup-of-WET610N/m-p/316121

Unfortunately, it did not work. Basically the apartment offers wireless internet supplied by PavlovMedia. Pavlov requires you to register two devices via mac addresses. If you try to connect a third device that's not registered, you can connect to their wireless router, receive an IP address, but you cannot browse beyond their welcome page. You then have the option to deactivate one of your registered devices and register a new one in order to "pass through".

I currently have my desktop registered as one device. I registered the WET610N wireless bridge as my second device. I configured the bridge as you have described and all the LED indicators are green (or blue in this case). However, when I try to connect my laptop to the bridge, it takes me to that Pavlov welcome page, where I have an IP address in the right subnet, but I can't go any further.

I got really frustrated and coughed up $99 to get geeksquad out here to set it up. He brought over a Netgear WN2000 extender and it did not work (same problem). I had him try the WET610N bridge thinking maybe I didn't set it up properly, and it did not work. Basically we can connect these devices but we always get stuck at the welcome page. We called up Pavlov and their tech support offered zero assistance. Geeksquad's theory is that Pavlov checks both the mac AND IP address and therefore really limits your devices to 2. I still don't quite understand this because when I do a scan I see tons of access points, etc, and I doubt all these people hired professional help to set it up it it's really that big of a pain.

For the time being I'm using a virtual router program which allows all my other devices to mooch internet off my desktop. This is fine for casual browsing but nothing more. I don't quite see the difference between doing this compared to having a bridge setup :/
 

KingArcher

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May 19, 2010
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This next question might sound silly but I would like to cover all grounds.
When you said you connected your laptop to WET610N, did you do it with an Ethernet cable or did you try wireless?

This wireless bridge is supposed to connect to the existing wireless network and provide you with an Ethernet connection for your network. From the Ethernet connection of the WET610N, you can connect another router and setup its wireless network[with different SSID of your choice] and then connect wireless to that.