Linksys WAP54Gs

[PCBrandon]

At work I have three wireless laptop carts, that are allowed to be "checked out" to a classroom in a certain wing of the school (e.g., one laptop cart goes to one wing, another to a 2nd wing, etc). During the summer I decided to run power and Ethernet to locations above the drop ceiling throughout the wings, so I could connect a total of nine access points so teachers do not have to worry about connecting the access point, nor finding an active port in their classroom.

So far this has worked great, but I want to be able to "bridge" each wireless access point together for each wing. I don't really want to bridge though, I really want to be able to have all of my access points in a wing working together, seemingly as one access point. For example, right now, a laptop can be in the middle of a wing and see all three access points and are able to connect to each one. What I want that laptop to do is only see one access point instead of that three. So if it's in the middle, it'll only see one access point instead of three, but still go out through the strongest signal access point (the middle one in this case). If the laptop is then moved down towards one end of the hallway, I still want him to see that same access point, but have it automatically go out through the strongest signal access point - the one at the end of the hall in this case.

In short, I want a laptop to be able to walk from one side of the hall to the other, connect to a single access point but go out through whichever access point has the strongest signal as he walks.

I tried it as an AP Client, but as I understand it wireless devices cannot connect to that access point, it can only talk to other WAP54Gs (which I don't really quite understand, what's the point of even having it as an AP Client...). I also tried them as repeaters of the middle access point, but you could still see and connect to all three of them, so in reality I just increase the work load of the middle access point.

Any thoughts?

[glc]

You need commercial access points that are designed for this kind of operation.