My question is similar to this one, which was never answered. I live in an old apartment building that is not wired for internet access, and therefore pay a monthly fee to access an XFINITY® WiFi by Comcast hotspot, a signal for which I can connect to from my room. I would like to create a private WiFi network in my apartment using the XFINITY hotspot as an internet source. On the face of it, this seems like it should be relatively easy to do. Yet I am unable to find a solution on the internet. (The term "subnet" comes up a lot, but I don't know how to create one of these.) Is there a particular WiFi router that I can buy that would allow me to do this in a relatively painless manner? My ideal solution would look like this:
Internet -->
XFINITY WiFi Hotspot -->
My Router -->
My Private Wifi Network -->
My Devices (e.g., Amazon Echo, Chromecast, Roku, XBox, laptops, iPad, Philips Hue, etc.)
32 Answers
Two possible solutions I can think of:
- Windows 10 laptop acts as a router.
This is relatively simple to set up: connect to the XfinityWifi hotspot from a laptop (or desktop, doesn't really matter) and enable the Mobile Hotspot option found in Settings.
- DD-WRT in client mode
Basically in this mode the router connects wirelessly to the XfinityWifi hotspot and broadcasts a signal. I'm not really well versed on how to set this up, but I can point you to this article on "Client Mode" on the DD-WRT wiki and this article on connecting/broadcasting more than one Wi-Fi network at a time.
In the past I have tried using Wi-Fi extenders (for example, something like this) but they just connect the computers directly through to the XfinityWifi hotspot and doesn't create a network. This might be what you're looking for though.
You want a wireless bridge device (sometimes also called a client bridge). This acts as a wireless client which "collects" the WiFi signal and outputs it over a wired Ethernet connection. You can then plug that Ethernet cable into a regular home router just like you would any wired Internet connection.
Wireless bridges are available for pretty low cost from many network equipment vendors. If you're more adventurous you could turn another old router into a wireless bridge using firmware like OpenWRT or LEDE or you coul accomplish the same thing with a Raspberry Pi. Specific instructions for how to do that though is really a separate question.
1
