Wireless router as an access point
From Applepedia
For whatever reason these days you can get wireless routers such as the Linksys WRT54G for about half the price of a comparable wireless access point. It's a better idea to go for the router. For starters, many wireless access points only have one ethernet port which means you'll either need to run a new cable for your AP, or sacrifice a port. Most wireless access points have a four port 10/100 switch in them, so not only do you not lose a port, you gain extra. Also if you go with the router as an AP, you have a warm spare in case your primary router dies.
It's easy to use a router as an AP.
- Attach the router you want to use as an AP to your LAN using one of the LAN ports on the router. DO NOT use the Internet/WAN port on your router. No good will come of this.
- Login to the router you wish to use as an AP
- Disable its DHCP server. This is VERY important.
- It's probably handy to assign it a static IP address so know where to go for management
- Set the wireless properties to be the same as they are on your primary wireless router or access point, if you have one. Set the same SSID and WEP keys to enable seamless transfer between the APs, if you have others. If you do MAC filtering, you'll need to maintain the list on all access points on your network
Happy networking
