WiFi Hotspot as home internet connection

Question

WiFi Hotspot as home internet connection

Hi,

We used to have fiber internet service to the house that had it's own modem. That modem was wired to a Time Capsule.

The fiber modem wifi broadcast was turned off and the Time Capsule broadcasted the wifi. 3 airports in different locations are wired to the time capsule and were broadcasting the wifi signal. A wireless printer was used for printing. I could play iTunes and choose to send the sound to stereos connected to the 3 airports and also the Apple TV.

Work gave me a hotspot with unlimited data plan that gets speeds 2-3x what my fiber connection was giving me which was 10M and cost $65/mo.

So I called and cancelled the fiber connection and we have been using the hotspot.

So now we connect with all devices to a wifi connection for the hotspot.

The only challenge is that now the wifi printer and the airports are not on this hotspot network so we can't access them while on the hotspot network.

Is there a way to route the wifi hotspot internet connection into my Time Capsule or somehow connect this wifi signal to my home network?

Thanks

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Apr 14, 2014 6:16 AM

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Answer 1

braden85

Community Specialist

Apr 16, 2014 12:04 PM in response to medicinemanKE

Hi medicinemanKE!

I have an article for you that talks about linking a current Wi-Fi router with your AirPort by creating an extended wireless network. Look through this article and see if it can help you resolve your issue:

Wi-Fi base stations: Extending the range of your wireless network by adding additional Wi-Fi base stations

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4145

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Have a good one!

-Braden

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Answer 2

May 5, 2014 12:30 PM in response to braden85

Thanks Braden but I'm not sure this is what I'm looking for. I have a wifi hotspot now as my primary internet connection so there is no wifi router, just the hotspot broadcasting the wifi with no way to cable it to something else. It would have to be wifi somehow into my apple network instead of cabled.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Thanks for the help.

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Answer 3

Network 23

Level 6

12,333 points

May 5, 2014 2:32 PM in response to medicinemanKE

Are you not able to use the same arrangement that you used to with the modem, except using the wifi hotspot in its place but turning off its wifi (using it only to receive Internet) and instead letting your Time Capsule do the wifi part as it used to? Or does the wifi hotspot not have an Ethernet port?

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Answer 4

May 6, 2014 5:32 AM in response to Network 23

I should have thought of this earlier - here is the user manual of the hotspot

http://cache.vzw.com/multimedia/mim/pantech_jetpack_MHS291L/pantech_jetpack_MHS2 91L.pdf

There is no ethernet port.

Does a device exist to capture a wifi broadcast out of the air and route it into the time capsule?

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Answer 5

Network 23

Level 6

12,333 points

May 6, 2014 10:41 AM in response to medicinemanKE

Thanks for posting the manual, it answers some questions. My Ethernet port idea won't work because there isn't one.

Do you know why the Airport Expresses and wireless printer are not connected to the Verizon's network? It seems like they should be able to work as they used to, after you reconfigure those devices to join the Verizon's wifi network. The Time Capsule can also continue its backup role as a wifi client instead of router.

medicinemanKE wrote:

Does a device exist to capture a wifi broadcast out of the air and route it into the time capsule?

A wireless bridge might in theory be able to do that. I've usually used them in reverse, to plug into a non-wireless device's Ethernet port to give it wireless reception, but some might be able to join a wifi network and provide the connection through the Ethernet port.

But it seems like the problem should be solvable by having the Airport Expresses and wireless printer join the Verizon wifi network unless I am missing something.

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Answer 6

Jun 26, 2014 4:12 PM in response to Network 23

Thank you for the help. Sorry for the delay in getting back to this.

I called Applecare last night and they told me that it is not possible to connect the Time Capsule to the wireless device, an ethernet cable is necessary.

In the Time Capsule settings, there is a tab for wireless and it allows you to set the name of the wireless network and the password - this is for what is being broadcast OUT of the TC. There are no settings for connecting INTO it wirelessly. Makes sense.

So it sounds to me like a wireless ethernet bridge may do the trick. If it is used to "capture" the wireless signal out of the air and send it thru a cable to a non-wireless device, that could be the TC right?

Can anyone confirm this and if so, recommend a good one that would be easy to set up and work well with Apple TC? Not sure that matters but I have read some reports that some are hard to set up and I'm technical but not a networking person.

Thanks.

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Answer 7

Jun 26, 2014 4:15 PM in response to medicinemanKE

And what about this thread...can the airport express do it?

wireless bridge to ethernet

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Answer 8

Jun 26, 2014 5:11 PM in response to medicinemanKE

Here is an Apple article about the airport express

AirPort Express: How to join an existing Wi-Fi network in client mode

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Answer 9

Choorel

Level 1

8 points

Jul 4, 2014 12:50 PM in response to medicinemanKE

I am actually moving into a house that will have a very similar setup. I plan on using a hotspot but I need it to connect to my Time Capsule and wired Airport Express at the other end of the house. I think what you are looking for is called "Wifi as WAN" capability. This means it can take your wifi signal and rebroadcast it. In my case and yours, we need it to convert the wifi to ethernet so it can go into our Apple Networking hardware.

Check out:

PepWave Surf On The Go - This lets you convert the wifi signal to ethernet, or boost the wifi signal.

http://www.peplink.com/products/pepwave-surf-on-the-go/

http://3gstore.com/product/3498_surf-on-the-go-3g-4g-router.html

Cradlepoint makes some routers that are capable of Wifi as WAN

http://cradlepoint.com/products/small-business-home-office-routers/mbr95-wireles s-4g-3g-router

(Amazon) http://ASIN.cc/EEVxM0

I will probably go with the PepWave, since you can disable the rebroadcast of the Wifi signal. I will use a hotspot and join the PepWave with it, then run ethernet into my Time Capsule and create a different Wifi/Wired Network with a different SSID. We will see.

Let me know if you try any of this stuff. Cheers!

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