Hi guys!

First post here! I have a vodafone Huawei Zyxel HG556a at home that never gets used and I really like the idea of installing Openwrt on it and using it as a wireless repeater. I have to come up a practical project for an Internetworking module I'm taking. I've been looking up stuff so it's definite that I can install Openwrt and from what I can see, It does not support ADSL which is fine cause I'm never gonna use that again!

What I can't seem to be certain about - is it possible to configure this router to act as a wireless bridge/reapeater if I install Openwrt? I think it'd be a nice practical project and it would definitely come in handy at home!

If so, any feedback, help or guides would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Dara,

the HG655a makes a fine wireless repeater and DLNA server. I have the TYPE C, see the label for the HW version.

Follow the instructions here: https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=39077

Cheers!

Thanks a million buddy!

Looking forward to trying it out!

Hey guys!

After some thought I I realised I might need to make some clarifications. The sort of topology I'm looking for is as follows: I have an eircom issued router (can't remember the model) with proprietary software that I don't want to change. This is what we currently use at home. I'd like to set up the Huawei hg556a ver C as a simple signal repeater, (or is relay the correct term?) without any Ethernet connections between the boxes, broadcasting the same SSID as the other, and on the same subnet. Would this be possible with openwrt? I don't have the technical know how to open up the box and wire up a serial connection to back up the flash. So if I can't get my desired function after having installed openwrt, the already useless router will become even more useless to me! I'll admit that being a young person at home doesn't help. The parents don't exactly like seeing me fiddling with stuff like that so I wouldn't like to have to tell them that I essentially bricked their router!

(Last edited by dara6611 on 21 Jan 2014, 09:20)

Dara,

What you want is a wireless repeater. The link I gave you earlier tells you how to configure your HG556a. No need to open anything to apply your own OpenWRT build, see the wiki http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/huawei/hg556a for how to flash your own firmware.

No need to change anything on the Eircom box.

I made a build of trunk for hg655a a few minutes ago. It contains my wireless setting - note I have a second usb radio but the built-in radio will do the job fine - telnet to 192.168.1.1 and edit the /etc/config/wireless file.

I use a different SSID and subnet for my wireless repeater. You can find my latest build here: http://www.4shared.com/folder/9jLgEyz-/_online.html

Have fun.

Dermot.

Dermot

Been trying to setup a recently retired Vodafone router and ended up here. After reading this thread I finally felt confident enough to proceed but I can't figure out how to connect the router to the internet to update necessary packages. ie the notes say the adsl port is disabled, which is ok with me since I use a cable modem with Digiwebs wireless service,  and there is no wan port to connect to the main router or the modem. I tried a few experiments but I'm stumped.
Although I managed to get as far as using ssh with the new password I prefer I prefer to use UIs so I was wondering if your trunk contains relayd and Luci and I can install it to get around all this.

Hi, yes, both luci and relayd are in this r40006 firmware, made this minute: http://www.4shared.com/file/54QtS6GLba/ … s-cfe.html

You can configure one of the ethernet ports as WAN, I have not done this but searching here should allow you get your config right.

Btw, Huawei have released the source code for the HG556a, link below.

Good luck,

Dermot

http://consumer.huawei.com/en/support/d … m?id=18086

(Last edited by dmcdonnell on 23 Mar 2014, 12:05)