Wireless Access Point in base station mode, relay mode and remote mode: 

Wireless access points are ubiquitous in home and office. They are often called wireless routers and usually connect to a wired cable that lets the router connect to the internet. PCs, laptops, phones and iPads connect to it wirelessly using the protocols of the 802.11 family which enable mobility for the person wanting to access the internet.  

However, the wireless routers have a limited range. When the devices can find sufficient signal from the router, connectivity to the internet is a joy. We are happy to browse and stream data over the connection. When the connectivity is poor, there are a few options available and we discuss these. The typical course of action is to buy an upgraded router – one preferably with better antenna and replace the existing router. This has had remarkable impact in most usages not only from the improved hardware but also from the improved protocols. The family of data protocols used with the wireless router to establish and maintain a wireless connection also called Wi-Fi protocols (short for Wireless Fidelity) have undergone several iterations with improvements in data transmission rates, power management and so on. These Wi-Fi protocols were labeled alphabetically with ‘b’, ‘g’ and ‘n’ becoming notable revisions. Together this alphabet soup protocols came out of the box and gave added power to the user. The range however does not extended automatically. 

The protocol however allows the wireless access points to work in one of three following modes: 

1. As a base station to connect to the internet over an LAN cable or Ethernet. 

2. As a relay base station to relay data between other base stations 

3. As a remote base station that allows clients to connect but passes the data to 2) or 1) for connectivity 

While commercial devices allow the functionality of 1) and the protocols technical feasibility of extending range with 2) and 3), users seldom leverage the ability of the access point to operate in relay or remote mode.  Wireless companies don’t make it any easier to leverage these functionalities. On the other hand, they sell separate devices for those with large homes and call them wireless extenders.  These wireless extenders are not only sold separately, they are even bundled with signal amplifiers and traffic snooping capabilities. Dedicated wireless repeater is also sold separately.  This contains two wireless routers where one of them picks up the existing Wi-Fi network and then transfers the signal to the other router with boosted signals. This technique of using one network with another is called bridging and the definition is expanded to include those where one of the networks is wired. Bridging can even be done on network that share similar infrastructure. If you think wired Ethernet cables are the only ones that allow network traffic to be conducted, even those for electrical circuit of the house can be reused to create a link from the Wi-Fi router to your device as for example with Powerline Ethernet kit. While extenders and repeaters improve coverage, they still load the existing main base station. This reduces speed in some cases. Consequently bridging is favored over the extenders.  If we wanted to convert existing older model routers to bridge or repeat, we are possibly out of luck even with reconfiguration of the device. Perhaps the devices of tomorrow can be made more open to begin with in their corresponding areas of operation.