To be frank we have a terrible office internet network where a 512 Kbps internet connection is shared with 8 devices which include 5 computers and 3 smartphones all taking up the limited bandwidth that is being offered .Though all devices remain connected the problem lies when the distance between the WiFi router and the device is farthest the connection seems poor , so it’s a unfair advantage that a few devices do have a good signal strength which in turn have good internet access and a few devices which include my smartphone and my laptop which stays at the other extreme end of the Wifi router seems to be the worst affected by this setup, with the company had no plans to invest in further upgrading to higher data plans now the only option remains is to invest in a good reliable router and use it as an extension to the current network or purchase a range extender device which could pick up signals better.
While I will be covering the range extender later on in this blog , thanks to Cisco middle east we have Cisco EA4500 router for reviewing and extending our network to other remote corners of our office.
NOTE: USING A EXTRA ROUTER WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR INTERNET SPEED BUT YOUR CONNECTIVITY AND INTERNAL FILE ACCESS IMPROVES DRASTICALLY .
Cisco EA4500 Tech Specs :
• Simultaneous Dual-Band N (2.4 & 5 GHz) making it an N900 router.
• Maximum speed up to 450 Mbp
• USB port for shared storage
• Gigabit Ethernet 4-port switch
• Built-In UPnP AV media server
- DLNA certified media server
To Add you can add your printers or share storage via the USB port and the specified Cisco router boasts of speed boost technology, 3×3 MIMO antennae everything I needed for my poor internet connectivity woes. Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router EA4500 offers all that Cisco’s new Connect Cloud has to offer. The biggest features of the router, as well as that of the EA series, is the Cisco Connect Cloud solution. This allows the router to be managed via the Internet, using the Cisco Connect Cloud portal or Cisco Connect Cloud mobile app, available for Android and iOS devices.
Table of Contents
How to set it up?
Simple you don’t have to mess up your existing connection let the existing connection from your old Wifi Router stay intact.
1. Unplug the new Cisco router from anything. Connect a single computer to the router. Do not connect the second router to the first at the moment!
2. Configure the router at http://192.168.1.1/
3. Change the LAN IP address of the second router from 192.168.1.1 to a free address in your LAN (e.g. 192.168.1.10 should be O.K. if the first router is also a Linksys router). The address you change to (192.168.1.10) must not be used by any other device with static IP address in your network nor should be assigned by the DHCP server your network. A default Linksys router uses 192.168.1.1 itself and the DHCP server assigns 192.168.1.100-149.
4. Turn off the DHCP server on the new Cisco router.
5. Save the setting.
6. Unplug the computer from the new Cisco router.
7. Connect an Ethernet cable from a numbered LAN port of the first router to a numbered LAN port of the second router. Do not use the Internet/WAN port on the second router! (Ethernet Cable is blue coloured cable provided in the box so remember by default you get a 1 Metre of cable which will not be enough and you can purchase as much as 10 Metre for a very reasonable price in local market.)
8. Now you have a second Wi-Fi connection that is open without any security password enabled goto your computer connect to the second router and type 192.168.1.2 or whatever the router access IP address you have assigned and match the SSID and password of your first router so you have a single SSID channel No and password for your network You should then be able to roam between both wireless routers without losing the connection.
The results:
Now we have better connection at every corner of the room also to mention no losing the connection if you move from one corner to another while using a smartphone.Overall a great product to invest in taking account its the latest one in the market and the impressive bandwidth capacity.
