zx10guy

My setup is a little overkill. Ok it's really overkill for a home network. I have virtual server running as a file server with Windows Server 2008 as the OS. The VMware ESXi hypervisor which the virtual file server is running on has two Equallogic iSCSI storage arrays. The storage arrays have 16 drives each (2 hot spares on each array). One array has 15K SAS drives in RAID 50 with about 900 GB of useable storage. The other array has 7200 RPM SATA drives in a RAID 6 setup with about 14 TB of useable storage. Like I said not your typical home setup and way over kill.

The region setting is primarily for the operating channels with the 2.4 GHz range. In the US, the FCC only allows channels 1 through 11 to be used. In Europe and Japan, you have the option to go up to channel 14. I suspect the chip in the US version may also be coded to lock out any attempt to flash it with the European only firmware to prevent any unauthorized attempts to use channels 12 through 14 in the US. Or Netgear could have used RF chips in the US only routers which don't have the capability to use channels 12 through 14.

The OP is probably long gone from monitoring this but for the benefit of others who may come across this. While the software simulators are pretty good in getting you the feel of working on an actual router, I subscribe to the need to get actual hands on with a physical device. There are many things which you don't get a feel for with a simulator and the simulator doesn't capture everything you may want to mock up. This is the reason why many networking professionals don't just use simulators. All my fellow networking acquintances don't use simulators but actual physical hardware in their lab setups including me. If you want to get an economical system put together, you can get a Cisco 2500 or 2600 series router. These can be had for pretty cheap from eBay or from a company like Curvature (formerly Network Hardware Resale). From a Cisco router stand point, I have two 1841, one 1861, and a 2611XM router(s) among other equipment.

To add a little more to this discussion, if you do want to use another SOHO wireless router to be an AP and you want to use the same SSID on this device, not only do you want to follow the procedure about turning off the DHCP server on this router and setting an IP for the router outside of the DHCP scope, you need to set the operating channel of this router to one that is not the same as the current wireless router. For 2.4 GHz, the non overlapping channels are 1, 6, and 11. If the current router is set for channel 1, you want the extra router to be set on 6 or 11. This is not an optimal design though. The problem is if you expect to get decent roaming performance, it's not going to happen with this setup. Both APs will be transmitting at the maximum power or a preset power which is usually enough to cause interference with the other wireless router in a home setting. A unified/centrally managed system will coordinate the operation of APs so they are not over transmitting causing interference with a neighboring AP. The system will also provide features such as auto channel selection to optimize RF performance based on your ambient RF noise. There was a mention of Ubiquiti and Engenius. Other vendors are Aruba and Meraki. I have a Aruba/Dell PowerConnect W in my home system.