Cisco WAP4410N Wireless-N Access Point - PoE/Advanced Security

Got my Cisco 4410 WAP today and it’s all hooked up. Good stuff.Here was my situation: I have a router from the SP on one side of my house. My office is on the other. By the time I close the door to my office, my devices can’t even see my wireless router on the other side of the house.The Cisco 4410 WAP fixed all that. Works beautifully but only after you understand some things.First, hardwire it into your SP router on one of the cat 5 ports. Within a minute, you’ll see the new wireless network from a device. I think the default name was ciscosp, or something like that.That’s great – you can cruise around on the internet and it’s wonderful.But you want to be able to configure the darn thing, of course. Here’s how:The default IP address for the WAP is 192.168.1.245. But it will go with DHCP (ie dynamic IP address) and if that happens then you won’t be able to find it.Here’s what I had to do: hardwire my MBP to the WAP with an ethernet cable. Now I had it’s attention. I went to 192.168.1.245 and could configure.UN/PW is admin/admin.1) First move: On the Setup/Basic Setup screen: change the Network Setup from DHCP to Static IP Address. And now you change the Local IP Address to 192.168.1.245. Now you know how to find it and it won’t jump around due to DHCP.Set the subnet mast to 255.255.255.0 and “point it at” your SP router. Ie, set the default gateway to 192.168.1.1 (that’s usually the address of your SP router).HIT SAVEChange to the right time zone while you’re in the Setup Section.2) Go to the wireless section.Wireless/Basic Settings: IMPORTANT:In the wireless section, it’s important to do 2 things.First, change the Wireless Channel from the default to option 11 – 2.462GHz. This will reduce interference.Next, Enter the SSID. USE THE SAME NAME AS YOUR SP ROUTER.So if your WAN comes up on your devices as JonesHouse, then use JonesHouse as your SSID here. You may be tempted to use JonesHouse2. But don’t. Use JonesHouse – the idea is you want your devices to roam from the WAP to your SP Router seamlessly as you walk around the house. So use the same SSID. That's the whole point.HIT SAVEWireless/Security:Make sure you have your new SSID at the top, which will only happen if you saved it in the prior step.Now you probably want SPA-Personal here for the security mode.Enter TKIP as the WPA AlgorithmEnter your pre-shared Key – use the same one you use on your SP router!3) AdministrationAdministration/Management – here’s where you change your UN and PW from admin/admin to something else.Next: under Web Access, you want to ‘Enable’ Wireless Web Access so that you can hit this puppy from your wireless devices as opposed to always having to hardwire into your SP modem.REPEAT – this is why it’s important to get off the admin/admin UN/PW.SAVEYou should be good to go.NOTE: I actually have a specialized VPN router from work in my office that’s tied to my cat 5 cable drop in my office. So I hook up to that VPN router and it takes me back to a VPN server in RTP from TPA.So – I bought a $12 ethernet switch from the local staples (D-Link something or other). Hooked the ethernet switch to my cat 5 drop. Then hooked the 4410 WAP to one port and the VPN router to the other.It all works beautifully! I can now hit my SP Router network in full strength from my office!And I can use my vpn router.Hope you find this helpful.

Yes, this is billed as a business-class wireless access point, but it's great at home, too.This is a major step up from the Motorola B/G wireless access point I had been using, for several reasons:1) Maybe it's the 3-antenna system, but I have great wireless coverage throughout my entire house now. The computer in the furthest corner of the house used to get only 1 or 2 bars (and typically operated only at 10mbps even though it was connected at G speeds) with my old AP, but now every computer in the house sees the full 54mbps throughput2) My old access point, while it supported 54mbps G network speeds, connected to my switch via a 10mbps ethernet connection! So even well-connected wireless clients felt slow. This new switch connects at gigabit speeds to my gigabit switch, so all wireless traffic is much faster than before3) It supports ipv6!4) Great flexibility if you want it - this thing supports multiple SSID's (visible or hidden), VLAN and QoS (which I don't use), PoE (which I don't use), even support for a RADIUS server to help with security if you wish (which I also don't use). If you buy more than one you can use them as repeaters.It's not that much more than your average household-grade wireless access point, but seems well-worth it. My only gripe? You can give the AP a name on your network, and in theory connect to its management console via [...]<name>, but that doesn't work for me. I can connect if I use its IP address, but on my network all clients at home get their IP addresses via DHCP... so figuring out the IP address the first time involved a bit of guesswork. I'm not sure why I can't connect via its name, but that hasn't been a blocker for me - only an annoyance. And my network topology isn't exactly what most people use at home so maybe that's at fault (I use a Windows 2008 Server edge box with all other clients connected through that). I am running firmware version 2.0.1.0 (the latest as of now).It supports N speeds, although the manual admits it's N-draft speeds, but I don't have any N(-final) devices to know if it supports N standard devices or not.I would recommend this product.Update 3/23/10: My wife recently bought home a new Lenovo laptop from work, and it connects at N speeds to this AP with no problems. I'm jealous of her ~130mbps connection! (all of my machines are still 'only' connecting at G speeds). So any doubts that this works at N speeds is now erased in my mind - and only made me happier that I bought this great AP.

I recently purchased this product to extend my wireless coverage on my home network. I have a Linksys WRT310N wireless-N router and a Linksys 8 port gigabit switch. I've been unable to use the Wireless WDS Repeater or the Wireless Client/Repeater modes with the Linksys WRT310N wireless-N router, no matter how I configure the WAP4110N.Evidently this has also been a problem with the WRT610N see "WRT610N AND WAP4110N CAN'T BRIDGE WIRELESSLY" at [...]. According to David Carr, a Cisco monitor "A reasonable solution would be not use the wrt610n and get a wrvs4400n version 2. Your connecting up a consumer product up to a small business product and in the past i have seen issues with stable and reliable connections..."Also in certain recent models only SSID #1 works while the rest do not, see "WAP4410N MULTIPLE SSID NOT SHOWING" AT [...]. A firmware patch is being worked on but not yet generally available. The product overall is a good one if used with the following recommended router/switches: WRV440N wireless gigabit router or the SRW2008PSwitch with POE. Please be careful if trying to connect to Linksys consumer grade products.- Further investigation has led me to understand that the WDS mode which allows wireless repeating and bridging is not available in the consumer class devices. Also the SSID patch is now readily available through Cisco Support.