Fon-Tastic! – update

Well, today (actually my last day before x-mas leave… ) in the office we did quite a lot of testing (since we also did quite a lot of drinking afterwards, I will not be able to tell what we exactly did;)

I found however, that the DD-WRT firmeware for the fonera (now using V 24 SP1) is a bit different then DD_WRT for other routers. My friend MF who uses DD-WRT on a netgear router saw that with the fonera it is not possible to put the router in repeater mode. (this is what he uses to make the router act as a repeater… duh!!).

This made us think it would be impossible to make the router repeat the wireless signal to wireless and the we would need to be physically connected (cable) to the router to be able to connect to our “distant” accesspoint”.

We then did some tests using the different modes to be able to make the router repeat the signal of the access point it was connected to, while we where both connected though a wireless virtual interface.

This works now and I have set this up at home. It works great! My router connects to a router closeby, but not close enough for my laptop IPW3945 Wireless card to pick it up. I have attached a windsurfer homemade antenna pointing to the accesspoint which increased signal quality by allmost 20%!!!

As this was my end objective, Ill leave things as they are now. At least untill my friendly neighbour (offering his open ADSL connection and router access) makes a change on his router*.

Ill post some pictures of my setup soon! (…)

* He should be very thankfull, as his router would disconnect from the ISP very frequently, leaving him/us without internet for hours or sometimes days. This has been sorted now, thanks to a small script that runs on my router, pings google, and if the ping fails, runs the connect command.

Fon-Tastic! II

Well, after a lot of experiments and configuration changes, Ive managed to bridge an open network I have close by. I’m still experimenting some issues..

Most importantly, when Bridged, I cannot find a way to connect back to the Fonera. This is a bit of a problem, as I will probably have to bridge to different access points around because they are not available all the time.(I have read about a script that automatically connects to an open access point. This, when everything is working as expected, would be a nice option).

I will now look into bridging it using a cabled connection. This way, I believe, I should be able to access both my Fonera and the Access point router.

Fon-Tastic

UPDATE: After flashing the Fon Router with the new firmware (V24 SP1) It is a lot more stable. I now have a 2.5hrs Uptime.

un-fonned

Last week, Ive been looking into the whole idea of using the La Fonera Router to extend my wireless coverage. I have changed the plan a bit, as I started learning about the new possibilities of my new La Fonera router

Since the FON hot-spot I have close by, does not reach me I have been looking into alternative solutions.

I found the DD-WRT firmware. Supposedly after flashing the router with this firmware, the very limited FON router turns into a highly configurable router, able to act as a wireless bridge or a repeater.

However when I started reading I quickly found that the whole subject is quite extended, not to say complex. There are many many versions of the dd-wrt firmware available, and an equally amount of way’s to “brick” your fon router. (leave it unusable… as a ). Consider this a warning, as I believe to have bricked it twice, and was just plain lucky to get it back again.

There are many websites that explain how to upgrade your firmware, and I wont explain the whole process here, as I think it differs a lot depending on the type of fonera router you’ve got.

I recieved a La Fonera 2201 router (fon+) and managed to upgarde the firmware finally with the explanation given here: [LINK] (I also used the firmware linked to on that site. This however, is an older version. Use the link below to get the same with SP1 included)

I managed flashing it with the the V24 firmware, and the router booted fine. Opening The DD-WRT router configuration menu gave me the feeling my laptop reconnected to a different access-point! completely different, and it actually looked like a real full-blown router.

However, (not sure its due to the treatment the router received, or the old version of the firmware Ive put on) after a couple of hours of use (and after making about a thousand of undocumented configuration changes), the router keeps resetting and therefore it is not fit yet for a connection.

I have downloaded the newer version of the firmware(V24-SP1) here, and will give it a try tonight, hoping the SP 1 will fix the restart issue.

The second part of my plan did not change. When i am able to set the router up as a repeater, I am sure that with a stronger antenna, (I will probably modify my satellite dish with a can-tenna, Bas… if you’re reading this…. send me some pictures of your “vergiet-tenne”) I can repeat one of the very weak open wifi signals I receive.

For the moment, I did some tests (while the flashed router was still working fine) and the EZ12 Windsurfer, a small reflector on top of the FON router already gave me some surprising results: I could connect to the double amount of access points, and the signal of the ones I used to receive with my laptop wifi card has increased allmost a 20%! Ans that is still just inside my appartment.