We’re finally getting high-speed internet at my house, after much wrangling. (The magic words that turned the trick were, “Mom, I’ll pay for it.”) We’d like to get wireless as well, since I have a laptop and a wireless card already that I used previously while elsewhere. There would only be two computers using it, my laptop and her desktop. I use the internet a lot; I currently have a long-ass cord for the modem so I don’t have to sit in my horrible chair all the time. She doesn’t use it as much since it’s slow, but would likely use her internet connection more if it were faster. What exactly do we need for wireless connectivity, and is it even really worth it for two computers? I searched for threads already and while the ones I found were informative, there may be something I’m missing.
Just a wireless router. The desktop can connect to the router with an ethernet cable and the laptop can connect wirelessly.
ETA: What Zipper said below, but one question: DSL, cable, or fiber? It makes a difference in how easy it is to set up your router.
Here’s what you do:
- Have the broadband connection/modem installed where the desktop resides.
- Go to your favorite electronics store (Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry’s, etc), talk to someone there, get them to sell you a Wireless G Router in the $40-60 range (anything more than that, they’re just selling you features you don’t need or don’t work).*
- Go home, follow the directions for the router. Set it up right there next to the modem and her desktop (you plug the router in to the modem)
- Plug her desktop in to the router.*
- Set up your laptop to work wirelessly with the router.
DONE!
It’s very very very simple to set up wireless anymore.
*NOTE: If her desktop doesn’t have an ethernet card/port already, pick one of these up at the store too. An the port on an ethernet card, or an ethernet port (which may be part of her motherboard), looks like a modem port (phone plug) but it’s bigger.
If the desktop already has an ethernet card (not a wireless card), you could just get an ethernet cable and a wireless router. Your desktop would be directly connected to the router, while your laptop would be connected to the wireless. If it’s not feasible to put the wireless router and modem near enough the desktop to connect it with a cable, you can get a wireless card for the desktop too. That’s all you really need.
We all seem to assume the laptop has a wireless card, if it does not you need a USB wireless stick for you laptop. These cost about as much as a router.
Without wireless, a laptop might as well be a desktop IMO.
Minimum:
Wireless internet card for your mon’s machine.
Put her card, and your laptop card in ad-hoc mode, and use XP’s internet connection sharing setup. Problem: Your mom’s machine will take a small performance hit (it is running a virtual router) and your mom’s machine must be on for you to connect.
Better:
Wireless router.
This will afford some degree of security (both you and your wife’s machine will be pretty much invisible from the 'net) and you can connect regardless if your mom’s machine is up. You can also do port forwarding for games and other reason’s that the which the mods frown upon discussing.
Your wife can connect to this via wired ethernet, you can connect via wireless. Optionally, you could add a wireless card to mom’s machine, and eliminate the cable.
In either case, make sure you change the SSID from the default, and impliment WAP or at least WEP (if your laptop card is 802.11b)
Answers to your questions:
It’s cable internet. The desktop has an ethernet card in it already; I once accidentally plugged the phone cord into its port instead of the modem port and Mom couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t get on the internet until she finally turned the tower around and had a look herself. In my defense, the two are close together and easy to mistake if you’re trying to plug things in in a dim room.
The modem provided by your cable company may already have wireless capability. Check this out before you go spending money to buy a wireless router.
We are in a real similar situation. I have a laptop and Mrs. Small has a desktop - we got internet today, actually, and here was our plan.
(Note: in our old house we had wireless so the desktop has a usb/wireless reciever)
1.) Had the router installed and they hooked it up
2.) Going next week to pick up wireless router to hook to the router
3.) It works…
Mrs. Small’s family does the exact same thing and it works great - but FTR, Time Warner only gave us the hard-wired router, not a wireless, but could have given us a wireless for a “small fee” every month…
Brendon Smal
That’s a good idea, checking to see if the modem they provide has wireless capability. I could also buy my own rather than buying one from them, though. I didn’t think to ask whether the cable company’s modem had wireless capability. Is a separate wireless router better than having it on the modem already? I have a feeling it is.
Thank you all for the advice.
I work for an ISP (previously mentioned upthread); check with your cable company, but unless you specifically ordered a wireless modem, I doubt that’s what they will give you. They’re going to want to charge you extra for wireless internet access, as brendon_small says.
You’ll save money in the long run by buying your own wireless router, and with cable internet service they are very easy to set up.
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Physically hook the router to the modem (take the ethernet from the modem and plug it into the internet port on the router).
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Unplug the modem for about 20-30 seconds and plug it back in (clears the cache of the MAC address from whatever it was hooked up to previously).
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Plug in the power to the router after the modem re-starts (by default, unless I’m mistaken, all routers are set for a DHCP/cable connection… DSL connections often use PPPOE, which is a different setting in the router configs). The router should pull an IP address from the modem.
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Plug an ethernet cable from the desktop to the router and reboot the computer (Windows should pull an IP address from the router, unless it is set with a static IP address, etc.).
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Use the desktop to access the set up for the router (usually by typing 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 in an address bar for a browser).
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Set up the wireless portion (IE: re-name the SSID, set up security, etc. following the directions that come with the router).
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Profit!
Not necessarily. When I signed up with Qwest for DSL they sent a modem/router combo with 4 wired ports and wireless capability. I didn’t ask for it or pay extra, it was just the model that they were providing at that time.
Since I already had my own wireless router set up and configured, I just used one of the wired ports on their router to connect to mine, but I could have just as easily used their wireless router.
With cable, the minimum acceptable spec is for the cable modem to have an ethernet connection for one computer - you can then plug the ‘WAN’ port of your wireless router straight into that. If they supply you with a USB-only modem (unlikely for cable) that won’t be any use for connecting multiple PCs at once.
You just need a ‘router’ - you don’t need a ‘modem router’, as these have a built-in DSL modem for broadband over copper telephone wires. (I think the latter kind would still work OK, it just has a redundant component and the cost may be slightly dearer).
My wireless connection is set up, secured, and working well. Thank you for the replies.