Surf SOHO MK3 and AP One Mini

Product Discussion Pepwave AP & Surf
1

I have a Pepwave Surf SOHO MK3 and am thinking about either (1) buying an AP One Mini to improve/extend wireless coverage, or (2) buying another SOHO and using it to extend coverage. I have a few questions:

  1. Does the SOHO MK3 or the AP One Mini have better Wi-Fi performance (range, speed, etc.)?

  2. Can two SOHOs be connected (over Ethernet) in such a way that (a) SOHO-2 operates only as an AP, (b) DHCP is handled by SOHO-1, and (c) devices connected to SOHO-2 via Wi-Fi are on the same VLAN and subnet as devices on SOHO-1?

  3. If I connect an AP One Mini to the SOHO (via Ethernet), can I configure both devices to use the same SSIDs and passwords so that devices seamlessly connect and transition to whichever AP has the best signal?

2

No

Yes

Don’t buy two SOHOs - you don’t need another router you need another access point.

4 Likes
3

Thanks for the help.

4

Thanks Martin- I hope this thread is not too old for you to see.

I have the same setup- Surf SOHO (MK3) with AP One Mini.

I’m wondering if it’s possible to make the SSID appear only once on the endpoints. I found a thread on spiceworks where they seemed to say that all you have to do is put them on separate, dedicated channels, but that’s not working, or I’m doing it wrong.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or guidance!

Gerry

5

Actually so long as the SSIDs are exactly the same name (SSID spelling,and capitalisation, and WPA password) then your wireless LAN device will pick the one to connect to that has the strongest signal. It should only show the SSID once too.

and whilst I’m here again - technically you can connect two SOHOs together and get one to act as an Access point for the other - but I still wouldn’t do this.

6

Thank you so much Martin!

I can’t believe that I got the spelling wrong on one of the WAP’s- it’s working correctly now.

And I learned something, too (I think)- the endpoint manages the ‘intelligence’ that two access points with the same name are just the same…

7

And a follow up question: I tried to assign non-competing channels, but now signal strength is reduced:

  • Can the Surf SOHO and the AP One Mini work well together with channels set to ‘auto’, OR
  • Do I need to test/experiment to find good channel assignments? If so, is there a particular tool or methodology that can be used to optimize the effort?

Again, thanks very much for any input!