Topic: Want to Set Up a Wireless Network

[spooner]

hi,
want to set a wireless network up between my 2 pc`s and my laptop,to share my 1 internet connection, can someone tell me everything i need and any tips to setting it up, good hardware to use etc

thanks in advance  

[Dack]

Depends on exactly what you want to do with it

To share the internet connection you need a router (and an internet account that allows sharing). If you have cable/NTL and a modem that has an ethernet connection, you get a simple wireless router. If you have ADSL then people tend to get the routers with the ADSL modem built in.

For each PC you want to connect you will need one wireless card/adaptor. These can be PCI cards,USB, PCMCIA - my current system uses PCI cards with one USB adaptor for any machines I want to connect. Most laptopr these days have a wireless connection built in.

Different standards of communication - most common 11b and 11g, these allow for 11 Mega BITS per second of network traffic and 54 Mega BITS per second respectively. It's worth noting that in some instances having one 11b card in the system drops the entire network down to using that.

For my network (on NTL):
1. Connected router to modem using Ethernet cable
2. Conected first PC to router with Ethernet cable - this is so you can configure the router to accept your wireless connection (e.g. encryption).
3. Cycled power on router and then modem
4. Switched main PC on and ran network setup.
5. Connected to router - each make of router has a different set of instructions as to how to achieve  this - in my case it was connect to 192.0.0.1. Then configured the wireless network with SSID, channel and encryption to use.
6. Installed the software for the wireless cards into the appropriate computers and then installed the cards.
7. Ran the network setup wizard on each of the machines to connect to the network.
8. Set up appropriate 'shares' on each of the machines to allow for file transfer between them.

Most routers have a hardware firewall built in so it's worth noting that I did not enable the firewall on the PC's connecting into the router during the configuration phase.

Hardware? Down to price range and expected use.
I use a DLink router which I picked up in the USA for about $40 - saw some in Frys there last week which were the 11g running at 104 MBps for $44 refurbished. I connect into them with either Microsoft 731s(?) or Belkin 54g depending on the machine I am using. I've also got a DLink 122 USB adaptor for the extra machines I obtain.