Access Point options and setup for Peplink solutions

This article looks at the options for providing Wi-Fi access points for your Peplink router. An access point is the private Wi-Fi network you setup to allow your users and devices to connect to the router and gain access to the Internet via one of the router's WAN connections. You can have one access point or multiple access points. For example, you can have a private access point for you and your family and a second access point for guests.

At a high level there are two approaches to providing access points. Most Peplink routers, such as the Pepwave MAX BR1 Pro 5G Router can provide a Wi-Fi access point without the need for any additional hardware. The alternative is to purchase one or more dedicated access points such the Pepwave AP One Rugged Wireless Access Point and connect the access point device to the Peplink router using an ethernet cable. A dedicated separate access point device allows you to place the access point in an area where your users are, which may be a different location from where the router is installed. This can provide better performance and range for your internet connectivity setup. Additional access point devices can be installed in areas where you need the best coverage which is often a requirement in a large, multi-cabin boat.

Another consideration is whether you plan on heavily using the Wi-Fi WAN feature on your router. Wi-Fi WAN allows you to connect your router to the Internet via an external Wi-Fi network (e.g. marina or campground Wi-Fi) instead of connecting using a cellular modem. This is a great way to save on cellular data plan gigabytes by using "free" Wi-Fi instead. However, while you can use both Wi-Fi WAN and the Wi-Fi access point features on the Peplink router at the same time, note there is only one set of Wi-Fi radios so when you use both these features you are essentially timesharing the Wi-Fi radios between these two types of functions. For this reason, many customers who rely on Wi-Fi WAN choose to use a separate device to serve as the Wi-Fi LAN access point, allowing the Wi-Fi radios in the router to be fully dedicated to the Wi-Fi WAN function.

One final consideration are the Wi-Fi antennas that are used on your Peplink router. Just as there is one set of Wi-Fi radios, there is also one set of Wi-Fi antennas. These antennas serve both the Wi-Fi WAN connections and the Wi-Fi access point connections. If you heavily rely on Wi-Fi WAN, then you will typically want to have external Wi-Fi antennas (e.g. one of the Peplink Mobility combo or Wi-Fi antennas) in order to improve the connection to the external Wi-Fi hotspot. But if you use external antennas, you may find the Wi-Fi coverage for your onboard access point may be compromised if there is a long distance or lots of structural obstacles between the router location and where your users are. So again, many customers who want the best of both worlds and will dedicate the router to external Wi-Fi and cellular communications coupled with external antennas and will use a separate access point device in the cabin close to the Wi-Fi users.

There are pros and cons for each of these approaches and if you go with a separate dedicated access point device, there are at least three methods for setting up the access point.

Here is a breakdown of some of the options:

With all that as background, let's walk through the steps to setup an access point using each of these methods.

Using the access point on your Peplink router

Most of the Peplink Pepwave routers we sell have the ability to create a Wi-Fi access point that your users and devices can connect to. Out of the box, these routers will broadcast a Wi-Fi access point with an SSID of PEPWAVE_XXXX where XXXX are the last 4 characters of your router's serial number. The password for this SSID (which you can change) is printed on the back of the router. You could just use that SSID but most customers want a custom SSID and their own password.

To create your own SSID, do the following:

1. Log into the Pepwave web admin (IP address 192.168.50.1 by default). If its your first time, you will be asked to change your password.
2. Click on "AP" on the top menu and then click on "New SSID" in the middle of the page.
3. Enter a name for your new network in the SSID field.
4. Select a "Security Policy" in the "Setting Settings" section, for example "WPA2 - Personal".
5. Enter a password of your choice in the "Shared Key" field.
6. Click "Save" at the bottom.
7. Click on "Settings" in the left menu under the "AP" section at the top.
8. Here you can check or uncheck the frequency for each SSID. For example, you could uncheck both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz for the default PEPWAVE_XXXX network and then it will no longer broadcast. Or you could setup two new SSIDs and have one only use 2.4 GHz and one only use 5 GHz. For most users, these are the only settings you need to change on this page.
   
9. When you are done, click "Save" at the bottom and "Apply Changes" on the top right.

That's it. You should now see you new network(s) show up and be connectable with your client devices.

Getting started with a Peplink AP One access point

If you decide you want to use a separate access point, then one of the Peplink AP One models is an excellent choice since these are designed to work hand-in-hand with Peplink routers. For the instructions below, I am using an Pepwave AP One Rugged Wireless Access Point. But others such as the Pepwave AP One AX Lite Wireless Access Point are great choices. All of these can be powered from your boat's 12-24vDC power or via Power over Ethernet (PoE) if available.

AP One Rugged has two ethernet ports on the back. The right port is the WAN port which goes to the LAN port on the router. If you have a PoE power supply this can be inserted between the devices to power the AP One. The left port can optionally go to a computer or other LAN device.

Here are some tips for getting to the web-based management consoles, which you will need if you implement some of these methods. There are several ways to do this. This is how I do it.

1. Plug in and ethernet cable between the LAN port on the router and the right hand WAN port on the AP One.
2. Power the router and AP One on and wait a few minutes for the devices to boot up.
3. Connect your computer to the router using the default Wi-Fi SSID or ethernet.
4. Go to "Status" and "Client List" to find the IP address of the connected AP One (e.g. 192.168.50.10).
   
5. Connect to the AP One web admin page using the AP One IP address (e.g. https://192.168.50.10). The default username and password are "admin" and "public". You should change this password.
6. By default both the router and the AP One will broadcast with their own PEPWAVE_XXXX SSID. Details and password are on the bottom of the router. You can also access the AP One web admin page over Wi-Fi by connecting to either PEPWAVE Wi-Fi network.
7. By default the AP One is in bridge mode, meaning it will bridge to the router's IP network which is 192.168.50.x by default.
8. Joining either Wi-Fi network or ethernet LAN will provide you with a 192.168.50.x IP address and allow you to connect to the internet via the router. IP addresses will be assigned and managed by the router's DHCP server.
9. You can manage the two devices in separate tabs:
   • 192.168.50.1 is the router
   • 192.168.50.10 (or whatever is assigned) is the AP One

Options for managing the access points on an AP One

Method 1: Have the AP One provide the only Access Point (with a custom SSID name) using Bridge mode

With this method, we are mostly already there if you have completed the steps above. If you want to create your own SSID, do the following:

1. Connect to the AP One web admin page and login.
2. Click on "AP" on the top menu and then click on "New SSID" in the middle of the page.
3. Enter a name for your new network in the SSID field.
4. Select a "Security Policy" in the "Setting Settings" section, for example "WPA2 - Personal".
5. Enter a password of your choice in the "Shared Key" field.
6. Click "Save" at the bottom.
   
7. Click on "Settings" in the left menu under the "AP" section at the top.
8. Check or uncheck the frequency for each SSID. If you want to turn off the default PEPWAVE network, uncheck both the 2.4 and 5 GHz check boxes.
   
9. When you are done, click "Save" at the bottom and "Apply Changes" on the top right.
10. Or if you want to turn off the default SSID on the AP One, another method is to click on "AP" on the top, then "Wireless SSID" on the left and select the default "PEPWAVE_XXXX" SSID.
11. Uncheck enable
12. Save and Apply Changes
    
13. Connect to the new custom SSID Wi-Fi network.
14. Turn off the Access Point on the router (on main Dashboard) if you only want to use the AP One as your Wi-Fi access point.
    
15. IP address will be assigned from the router IP address pool

Method 2: Have the AP One provide the only Access Point (with a custom SSID name) using Router mode

This method is very similar to Method 1. The difference is the AP One manages IP addresses from its own pool which can be useful if you change router devices on a regular basis but want a stable IP environment for connected clients including devices with static IP addresses or IP address reservations.

1. Follow steps 1 to 7 above.
2. Change from Bridge mode to Router mode by going to Network -> AP Mode -> select "Bridge"
   
3. Click on "Save" and "Apply Changes".
4. Reboot the AP One.
5. By default, the AP One IP address will be 192.168.1.1 and it will use its own DHCP server to assign IP addresses from the 192.168.1.x pool.
   
6. You can now access the AP One admin page from 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.50.10

Method 3: Use Router Access Point Controller to manage AP One

This last method is probably the most interesting. This allows you to just plug in the ethernet cable between the router and access point and power up the access point. There is nothing to directly manage on the access point. All management will be done from the router. To use this method, do the following:

1. Login into router web admin (192.168.50.1 by default).
2. Click on the AP top menu item.
3. Under "AP Controller" check both boxes ("Integrated AP" and "External AP") in the "AP Management" line.
4. Under the new items that appear below "AP Management", check the "Approved List" option in the "Permitted AP" row. While you could leave this as "Any" I prefer to explicitly list the APs that I will manage.
5. In the box that appears, type in the serial number of the AP One.
6. Click on "Save" and "Apply Changes".
   
7. The Admin password for AP One will automatically be changed to a random password. If you want to change it or note the new password, go to "AP" -> "Settings" -> "Default" (the name of your new AP Profile). Scroll to the bottom where you should see "Admin Password". Note the new password (uncheck "Hide Characters") or set it to your own. Since you do not need to login and manage the AP One, this step is not necessarily required.
   
8. If you already have custom SSIDs created, these are passed to the access point or you can now add a custom SSID in the AP Controller if needed and / or turn off PEPWAVE SSID as done in the previous methods.
9. If you want to add additional SSIDs, click on "AP" on the top menu and then click on "New SSID" in the middle of the page.
10. Enter a name for your new network in the SSID field.
11. Select a "Security Policy" in the "Setting Settings" section, for example "WPA2 - Personal".
12. Enter a password of your choice in the "Shared Key" field.
13. Click "Save" at the bottom.
14. Click on "Settings" in the left menu under the "AP" section at the top.
15. Click on the "Default" AP Profile.
16. Check or uncheck the frequency for each SSID.
17. When you are done, click "Save" at the bottom and "Apply Changes" on the top right.

After a couple of minutes, the configuration changes will be pushed to the AP One automatically. In addition, the default PEPWAVE SSID on the AP One will be turned off. If a user connects to the new SSID, they will be connecting to either the AP One or the router as they both now share the SSID and assign client IP addresses from the same address pool. Note there various reports available for seeing which clients are attached to each access point, usage statistics and more.

If you want to turn off the access point on the router in order to dedicate its functions to external Wi-Fi connections, simply go to the main router "Dashboard", find the row titled "Wi-Fi AP" and select "Off" instead of "On". This will disable the Wi-Fi client access point on the router but leave the access point with your new SSID running on the AP One. In this case, if clients connect to the new SSID network, they will only connect to the network broadcast by the AP One.

Summary

This article outlines just a few of the methods for managing and connecting to a Wi-Fi access point with a Peplink setup. There are other ways to do this including setting up a mesh network or managing your devices from InControl2 which may be covered in future articles. Be sure to also check out the documentation for the Pepwave AP One line here for additional tips on setting up and using these products.

As always, if you have comments or questions, please use the comments section below.

Safe travels.

Doug Miller