Hello everyone,

As most of you may know, WiFi repeaters/extenders are generally avoided  because when they use the same channel to communicate with the router and the client, the broadband throughput is effectively cut in half.

However, this problem can be solved with Dual/Tri Band repeaters which can simultaneously communicate with the client on one channel and the router on another.

Few of these exist in the market right now including the TP-Link RE450 (OpenWRT firmware available for this one) and the Netgear Fastlane Tech routers. However, I was not able to find anywhere on this forum whether OpenWRT supports such routers i.e. allowing simultaneous transmission on both channels to eliminate/reduce the throughput loss.

The one thread I did find, did not have a conclusion: forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=70072

Please could any of the pros enlighten us of the same.

TLDR:
Does OpenWRT support dual band extenders in such that the usual 50% bandwidth loss is eliminated?

Thanks a lot guys!

(Last edited by openwrt_newbie999 on 13 Oct 2017, 05:01)

Yes.  Any dual band router running OpenWrt can do that.  It does not need to be a model specifically sold as a "repeater".

Thank you for the reply @mk24.

I was searching through the threads for router recommendations and found this one forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=71874. Your posted:

Please could you explain why? I thought if you used a single band router your speed gets cut in half regardless of how slow your connection would be because there is an extra hop?

I made a router recommendation thread because after scouring through the whole hardware supported list I could not find a router that met my criteria: forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=366723#p366723

Would appreciate your input.

Thanks again for the help!

(Last edited by openwrt_newbie999 on 15 Oct 2017, 00:36)