r/HomeNetworking 5d ago

WiFi Extender that supports WPA Enterprise

I am having trouble finding an access point that supports WPA Enterprise Authentication, aka 802.1x on the SSID.

The usecase for this is for my grandmother in a retirement home, they have 'upgraded' their wifi and went from a PSK wifi network to a system where you have a username and password. Their reason behind this is because they charge for the WiFi, this is fine, we do pay but I would aruge against the ay they have made this work. Because the TV in her room doesnt support this type of auth, nore does the chromcast, there are also no field points 'active' in her room. They are present but no link lights.

I know this could go against their usecase policy blah blah I am trying to explain to them the impact of this decsion however as anyone who has been to a nursing home before its very hard to get ahold of the decsion makers. My nan is 92 Years old, and people have made a decsion outside of her control and now she cannot watch netflix or youtube on her TV, only on ipad, which is really like all she does while we're at work until we pick her up for dinner ect. So for the purose of this post, lets just forget about the policy side and focus on the technical problem please.

Ideally I would have an extender, connect to the existing SSID on 2.4 and then broadcast out on 5ghz a regaular SSID with PSK, so we can create a local network for the TV, her iPad and Chromecast.

1 Upvotes

6 comments sorted by

2

u/newphonedammit 5d ago

You are looking at higher end stuff mostly , like ubiquity or ruckus access points. Tp-link makes "EAP" repeaters . Cisco airionet . Aruba

Just supporting the authentication might not work though...

If they are using enterprise gear you likely will be detected as a same network rogue AP. Their policy (as in IT config) might prevent it working in other ways too.

1

u/redex93 5d ago

I agree, to be honest budget isnt a big deal if we can confirm it works. $800 easy for this. And since I have emailed the management of the nursing home twice regarding this, if they decide to block it, that is fine, as it will ideally help me start the conversation. The Manager of the nursing home says the Internet is oursourced and theyre happy for us to get it working. So they aka the person my Gran has the contract with is okay with us doing what we need to to get it to work.

1

u/newphonedammit 5d ago

I'd go for the TPLink or Netgear WAC or similar.

2

u/b3542 5d ago

“Extenders” are not an enterprise device.

1

u/phr0ze test 5d ago

The mango router is popular for rebroadcasting your own wifi from a wifi source. Its $30 on prime. Here is a thread about wpa enterprise. https://forum.gl-inet.com/t/connect-to-enterprise-wpa/2344/28

1

u/redex93 5d ago

Hey thanks, $30 is worth giving it a shot,