Re: How can I join a small cluster of PCs to the main LAN wirelessly

We have a master LAN on a 10.4.0.x.subnet which connects to the
Internet through a Zyxel Prestige wireless router. We have a small
office around 40m away with good LOS to the main office and a wireless
laptop gets a good signal. It is also on a 10.4.0.x subnet and the mask
is 255.255.255.0 in obth cases. We would like to connect the 30 PCs in
the smaller office to the main office LAN to access the main fileserver
and Internet, and I thought that this could be done wirelessly.
Obviously we could put a WLAN card in each PC but as they are already
set up on a network I wondered if I could simply connect the smaller
LAN to the bigger LAN with an access point or something like that? I've
read about bridging but the LANs are on the same subnet - they just
can't see each other. At the moment we run a length of CAT5 across the
car park on a Sunday afternoon to bring the networks together to
perform maintenance on them but this situation is not ideal. Any help
appreciated.

30 PCs each with their own wifi card, at those distances, is probably not a
great idea. The performance will likely be terrible. But then again, 30 of
them trying to go across a single wifi link for filesystem access may not be
terrible better either. What else in the main building is expecting to use
the wifi router? If there's already a number of PCs using it then adding a
link to 30 more might not be all that great an idea. What might be best
would be a point-to-point link with two wireless devices specifically
handling JUST that traffic. This way you wouldn't be worried about
overloading the existing router or affecting it's coverage area. Your
point-to-point devices would be setup with highly directional antennas aimed
directly toward each other. That way you'd be getting the best possible
signal and using it for just that purpose.

And since you're already using private IP addresses it may also be a good
idea to setup the other building on it's own subnet. Although using class C
subnets on with a class A address block is somewhat nonstandard. It'll
work, with most gear, but be aware that it's outside the norm.

Is this sort of idea practical?

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