Ooh, sorry for the delay in replying.

So option 2 doesn't allow clients to connect to WiFi, but 1 & 3 do?

I'm not sure what the real world difference it between 1 & 3 in terms of a machine (e.g. laptop) that wants to connect to the network, other than possibly speed?

thanks

Correct.

Sorry, forgot 1 & 3.

If the repeater is too far away from the base station, then it would not work, you would have to wire it.

A wired access point will always be faster than repeated mode, well that's my experience anyway. I have 2 access points and one base station, that being the 2860. Both my AP's are wired, well they are across Powerline adaptors as that's the fastest connection I can make, Tried them as repeaters and apart from the fact the 2860n does not support 5Ghz it was faster using Powerline.

Thanks Marjohn56.

Your setup is the same as mine so I know mine should work...
Actually, it seems to work fine (internally - I've not connected it to my fibre yet - I'm trying to get at least a basic appreciation of each of the options).

Oh, do you use roaming (i.e. set up a Radius server)? I originally thought I'd set up a Radius server on my NAS but that doesn't look functional enough somehow, so I guess I'll on one of the AP900s.

Thanks for your help and guidance, much appreciated.

Answering my own question
Now I understand a bit more - I guess I could have used either

The setup I currently have is 3 off AP900's and a 2860 although I haven't connected the 2860 yet the 3 AP900's are connected to my older 2820 on which I have turned off the WiFi.

I have the Radius server enabled on one of the AP900's and the other 2 communicate with that one so you can roam between the different AP's without dropping the WiFi. I have a second SSID setup in the more conventional mode so that the devices that don't support 802.1x can connect and I have a third SSID setup for use by Visitors

The Modem of the 2820 is connected to an ADSL2+ line and the WAN2 is fed from a EE Brightbox2 which is running FTTC VDSL2. The 2820 is then load sharing between the two lines


Jon

Ahh, interesting you mention about devices that support 802.1x. I'd not considered that. Well, I think Id' thought it was a server side thing, transparent to users.

Is it a browser compatibility thing, so most modern (iOS/Android) devices will be able to connect ok but older ones won't?

thanks