RUT850 Wireless

Summary

This chapter is an overview of the Wireless section of RUT routers.

Wireless Configuration

The Wireless configuration window provides you with the possibility to configure your wireless access points and wireless stations. The Wireless Station Mode will become active only when Wi-Fi is configured as an active WAN interface (either main or backup).

Above is the overview of the Wireless Configuration window. It displays active access points and stations. Here you can disable or enable your Wi-Fi interfaces, remove unwanted access points or stations or enter a configuration window for each Wi-Fi interface, where you can configure it more thoroughly.

Wireless Access Point

The Wireless Access Point configuration window is used to make changes to different access points. It is divided into two main sections – device and interface. One is dedicated to configuring hardware parameters, the other – software. To access this window, simply click the Edit button next to the Wi-Fi interface that you wish to configure.

Device Configuration

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The Device Configuration section is used for configuring Wi-Fi hardware parameters.

General Setup

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The General Setup tab is used to select the wireless channel used by the Access Point.

Choose a WiFi channel according to the busyness of other channels. While RUT devices do not provide a function that lets you monitor the usage of nearby WiFi channels, you can download a free WiFi analyzer app on your phone, laptop or other WiFi device. In most countries there are 13 WiFi channels on the 2.4 GHz band (14 in Japan) to choose from. RUT routers' WiFi works on the 2.4 GHz band. A wireless 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi channel requires a signaling band roughly 22 MHz wide, radio frequencies of neighboring channels numbers significantly overlap each other. Many home networks utilize routers that by default run on channel 6 on the 2.4 GHz band. Neighboring Wi-Fi home networks that run over the same channel generate radio interference that can cause significant network performance slowdowns for users. Reconfiguring a network to run on a different wireless channel helps minimize these slowdowns. Therefore, pick a channel with no other active Access Points and preferably one that has no active Access Point on two adjacent channels on each side as well. If you don't feel like doing this, set the Channel field to Auto and the router will pick the least busy channel in your location automatically.

Advanced Setup

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The Advanced Setup tab is used to configure how the wireless Access Point will work from a hardware perspective.

FIELD NAME	VALUE	DESCRIPTION
Mode	Auto | 802.11b | 802.11g | 802.11g+n; Default: 802.11g+n	Wireless protocol used. Different modes provide different wireless standard support which directly impacts the radio's throughput performance
HT mode	20 MHz | 40 MHz 2nd channel above; Default: 20 MHz	HT (High Throughput) mode allows you to specify channel width. 40 MHz bandwidth provides better performance but it overlaps 4 adjacent channels on each side, therefore, it might overlap with many other Access Points working in those channels. If that is the case, the router will switch back to 20 MHz mode automatically to reduce interference. 40 MHz is only available if the selected channel is not Auto
Country code	country code; Default: 0 - World	SO/IEC 3166 alpha2 country codes as defined in ISO 3166-1 standard
Transmit power	100 % | 80 % | 60 % | 40 % | 20 %; Default: 100 %	WiFi signal power. Use lower power to reduce the router's CPU usage
Fragmentation threshold	integer [256..2346]; Default: " "	The smallest packet size that can be fragmented and transmitted by multiple frames. In areas were interference is a problem, setting a lower fragment threshold might help reduce the probability of unsuccessful packet transfers, thus increasing speed
RTS/CTS threshold	integer [0..2347]; Default: " "	RTS/CTS (Request to Send/Clear to Send) are mechanisms, used to reduce frame collisions introduced by the hidden node problem. It can help resolve problems arising when several access points are in the same area, contending

Interface Configuration

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The Interface Configuration section is used to configure wireless Access Points from the software perspective.

General Setup

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The General Setup tab contains only two options. SSID is the name of your Wi-Fi interface. When other Wi-Fi capable computers or devices scan the area for Wi-Fi networks they will see your network with this name. Hide SSID is used to make your Access Point invisible to other devices. To use a hidden WiFi Access Point, first un-hide it, connect your device to it, then hide it again.

Wireless Security

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The Wireless Security tab is used to determine what kind of encryption your WLAN will use. You can choose between different types of WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol) or WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access.) WPA provides better security because it uses improved data encryption through the temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP) but not all devices support WPA and will work only with WEP type of encryption.

WEP

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FIELD NAME	VALUE	DESCRIPTION
Encryption*	No encryption | WEP Open System | WEP shared key; Default: No encryption	The type of WiFi encryption used. Configurations for both WEP Open System and WEP shared key are identical
Used key slot	Key #1 | Key #2 | Key #3 | Key #4; Default: Key #1	Specifies which key is used for authentication
Key #1 | Key #2 | Key #3 | Key #4	string; Default: " "	A 10 symbol custom key used for authentication

WPA

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FIELD NAME	VALUE	DESCRIPTION
Encryption*	No encryption | WPA-PSK | WPA2-PSK | WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK mixed mode; Default: No encryption	The type of WiFi encryption used. Configurations for both WEP Open System and WEP shared key are identical
Cipher	Auto | Force CCMP (AES) | Force TKIP | Force TKIP and CCMP (AES); Default: Auto	An algorithm for performing encryption or decryption
Key	string; Default: " "	A custom passphrase used for authentication (at least 8 characters long)

MAC Filter

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The MAC Filter tab is used for setting up rules that allow or exclude devices with specified MAC addresses from connecting to your Wi-Fi network.

Field name	Value	Description
MAC address filter	Disable | Allow listed only | Allow all except listed; Default: Disable	Allow listed only – only allows devices with MAC addresses specified in the MAC list to connect to your Wi-Fi network Allow all except listed - blocks devices with MAC addresses specified in the MAC list from connecting to your Wi-Fi network
MAC	mac; Default: " "	List of MAC addresses to be included or excluded from connecting to your Wi-Fi network
Key	string; Default: " "	A custom passphrase used for authentication (at least 8 characters long)

Advanced Settings

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Field name	Value	Description
Separate clients	yes | no; Default: no	Prevents Wi-Fi clients from communicating with each other on the same subnet
Increase TTL packet size	yes | no; Default: no	Increase TTL packet size for incoming packets

Wireless Station

RUT955 can also work as a Wi-Fi client. Configuring client mode is nearly identical to AP, except for the fact that most of the options are dictated by the wireless access point that the router is connecting to. Changing them can result in an interrupted connection to that AP.

In addition to standard options you can also click the Scan button to rescan the surrounding area and attempt to connect to a new wireless access point.

After which you will be redirected to the window shown below.

Pressing Start scan will initiate a scan for available Wi-Fi Access Points in the area. After the scan finishes, you will see a list of these Access points. Choose one according to your liking and press the Join Network button next to it.