I am thinking of setting up a wireless router in my house so that everyone can benefit from the the cable modem.
Computers involved:
Dell 8300 w/WinXP
HP Pavilion w/WinME (may upgrade to XP)
Compaq laptop w/Win98 (can’t upgrade, but isn’t used much)
I’ve never actually set up a wireless network, but I do have a good deal of experience with Wi-Fi, so I’ll take a shot at this.
A wireless Access Point(aka wireless router) and one wireless card for every computer. I don’t believe that you need anything else, although you may need to hook up the internet connection to a real router(or use one of your current computers as a router).
Make sure that the wireless equipment supports WPA-SKM(WiFi Protected Access Shared Key Mode). The original WiFi encryption method, WEP, can be easily broken given enough time(which is measued in days, if not hours).
A wireless network will cause interference with(and be interfered with by) anything that operates in the same frequency band. Cordless phones are a common source of problems. If you have a 2.4 GHz phone, then it will interfere with 802.11b and 802.11g equipment. A 5.8 GHz phone will interfere with an 802.11a network. 900 MHz phones shouldn’t cause any problems. I’ve heard that microwaves can also cause interference with 802.11b/g when they’re operating, but I imagine that this isn’t a major problem unless you use your microwave pretty much continuously.
I have a Linksys wireless set up at home. It was easy to set up - with the one exception of the encryption, which - like you - I felt was important so my signal couldn’t be just randomly tapped. Fortunately a buddy of mine is a real tech-geek and helped me with that part. I would recommend a similar approach (i.e., using a knowledgeable expert for that bit).
It works very well - I have an easy time with wireless connectivity throughout the out. We have wireless phones, but I have experienced no conflict with their signal.
I have a US Robotics wireless router at home. Since I live in the country, and my nearest neighbors are a good 1000+ feet away, I am not to concerned with security so I am only using MAC address locking.
The setup was fairly quick, I have one PC and one laptop on the wireless portion of the LAN and two Xboxes on the wired portion. The cons are line of sight issues. I have my router stuck in the floor joists in the basement (that is where all the wired cables came into the utility room.) and there are certain locations in the house where the reception is awful. I have considered putting a repeater up high in the house, but then I may need to worry about security.
I have a Linksys wireless set up at home with much the same equipment you have (except that I had already installed XP on my HP Pavilion 7920, with dire results to the programs that I already had on there, most of which had to be replaced–but that was in no way the fault of the wireless stuff).
The modem I’ve had for four years did not work for wireless, so I got a new modem from the phone co. (Qwest, ugh) that supposedly eliminated the need for a router, but at that point I already had the router, so I didn’t try very hard to make it work. Got everything at Radio Shack (“everything” being a router and the cards for the laptop and HPPavilion, the Dell is hardwired) and the hardest part was putting the card into the Pavilion, because it required both delicacy and force. I have no idea how it’s encrypted, but it is; my son came over and checked and the signal really does not extend that far (I was a little worried that people at the Starbucks down the street could piggyback on my wireless, but apparently they can’t).
Now, supposedly my connection is almost always either “Excellent” or “Very good”–that’s what it tells me. But I have found that I need to hit the Refresh button much more often than usual to get past “server not found” error messages. When I have the laptop outside it’s more likely to be “Very good” even though the router is by a window that overlooks the patio, which is where I sit with the laptop), and sometimes I don’t get a signal downstairs at all.
We have also done something or other to send the signal to our radios downstairs, so we can broadcast music from the computers all over the house. This has not been terribly successful. Static and fuzz downstairs, and then it just cuts out. But we had the same problem before, plus we had cables everywhere that had to be disconnected when we stopped listening.
We have wireless at home. We got it so I could connect to the network and the internet from our laptop and my pda. Unfortunately for some reason I can’t connect with my pda any more and I’m not savvy enough to work out why. It’s really frustrating! If anyone has any ideas…
We’ve never had any trouble with the wireless interfering with our handsfree phones.
I also have a Linksys wireless setup, with a Wireless-G Broadband Router hooked up to my Dell Dimension 4600 (running XP Pro) and a matching wireless card for the laptop (a Dell something-or-other, running W2K). Very, very easy setup – I didn’t even have any trouble configuring the encryption, which I considered a requirement. I even use a different card in the laptop for my office’s wireless setup at work, and I’ve never had any problems here at home. I don’t notice any internet speed difference between the laptop and the desktop, either. Basically, I haven’t encountered any cons yet, and I’ve had the setup for almost a year.
Go, Linksys! 
Linksys router, and at one point I had four computers using, variously, Linux, WindowsNT and Windows 2000 as operating systems. It wasn’t a problem.
Oh, also, I figure that anyone who wants to spend hours or days cracking my WEP to use my bandwidth deserves whatever bandwidth he or she wants.
It’s not simply just using your bandwidth though. Once someone is on your network they [potentially] have access to all of the computers on your network, not just your Internet connection. Do you have multiple computers? Sharing files between them? How secure are they? Are you using strong passwords? It’s a lot better to just lock the front door than try to nail down everything in the house.
Even if they do just steal your bandwidth, what if they use it for something illegal? Or even just sending spam.
I’m always surprised at how many open wi-fi networks are around. My co-worker can see three of them from his house – totally open. You can browse their network and everything.
Wi-fi is great but don’t ignore security. It’s pretty easy to setup, but if you’re unsure ask. Some general tips:
The only things that are shared on our network are things we specifically place in our shared folders (ie, things I don’t mind my brother or mother seeing). Heck, if they wanna see that stuff, fine with me.
There’s actually a movement (in my city, at least) to set up open wireless connections, to share the love.
Actually, you don’t even need a wireless card for every computer. You can situate the router right next to one computer and make use of the router’s ethernet ports. Then, just use wireless for the other computer/s.
That’s what we do in our house. I have a Dell 8300 hooked up to the router using an ethernet cable (after all, i’m not going to be carrying the tower and my two monitors around the house), and we use the wireless for my wife’s laptop. Setting up the WEP encryption on my relatively old Linksys router was very easy, and i’ve never seen any strangers on our network.
I didn’t really mean you specifically. Not everybody is as diligent – or even knows that they need to be.
Maybe I’m overly cynical, but it sounds like a great place to setup shop as a spammer. I’ll wait for the real ISPs to [hopefully] get moving with WiMAX.