Setting up a Monoprice 8070 router as a gateway (repeater).

I needed to extend my network to the outside of my house so was looking for an inexpensive way to do this when I came across the Monoprice 8070 router.  

It had all the features of a modern router for $30 bucks so I decided to try it.


Built in to the router is a mode where you can set it up as your primary access point and have it connect to another wireless network (hence creating another network in your house) but I could not get this mode to work even after working with Monoprice's technical support.  I had already filled out the RMA form but had not hit send yet.  The voice in my head was saying: "You should have bought the brand-name router and this never would have happened."  BUT just at that point and 4 hours working with the monoprice technical support folks, they suggested what I really needed was to use the Gateway functionality of the router which turns the router into a repeater.  This extends the network (which is really what I was trying to do anyway).  So I gave it a shot, and it works great!  I wish I had known all of this before I started and could have saved myself 8 hours of frustration.  Here are the details:

To get the Monoprice 8070 router to work as a repeater follow these directions.

This assumes you have another wireless router in place that the monoprice router will get it’s internet connection from.

Step 1:

Disconnect your existing connection from your computer (this might mean disconnecting an ethernet cable, or disconnecting from the wireless lan)

Step 2:

Plug in the Monoprice router with a cable into port #1 and your computer

Step 3:

Use Firefox (or equivalent) and go to http://192.168.0.1

Step 4:

Use the Wizard it recommends

Wizard Step 1: Select Bridge

Wizard Step 2: Put in the appropriate time zone.

Wizard Step 3:  Note:  Make sure your old network is setup on 192.168.0.1 (which is the same as the default value here).  

Wizard Step 4:  The old router should be running with DHCP enabled so you can leave the default here.

Wizard Step 5:  Change the band to match your old router’s setting.  Change the mode to Client (this is the important part) AND the SSID to match your old network’s SSID.  The rest are defaults:

Wizard Step 6: Change the encryption to match what was on the old network.  Mine is WPA2(AES) with a long pass phrase.

One thing to note, is that using a repeater in this way reduces the maximum throughput of the network by half (the repeater has to waste bandwith reading from the network and rebroadcasting that traffic).  As these routers max throughput is close to 300Mbps this shouldn't be much of an issue with a "normal" 10Mbps connection.


Let me know if this works for you.


WRITERS FINAL NOTE:  
The main reason I got the router was to attempt to extend the network's reach in my house.  


I eventually gave up on this router and went back to my D-655 D-Link router.  I had 3 issues (1) the router seemed to be rebooting randomly, but mostly when i was using the admin pages, and (2) it didn't seem fast enough and (3) I got tired of spending time trying to make this router work. I probably got a bum unit and I'm sure Monoprice would have rectified the situation as they were really trying to make this router a success in the marketplace.  


The Monoprice router did have better range than the D-Link router so I decided to try and take swap the Monoprice and D-Link Antennae to see if the range of the D-Link would be extended and, to my surprise, it worked!  I had the same range at the Monoprice router.  So in the end, I got what I wanted just not in the way I wanted it.    YMMV.