3Com® ADSL Wireless 11g Firewall Router: standalone?

Hi all,

A question about the 3Com® ADSL Wireless 11g Firewall Router which is
currently bundled with a PC card. Is the router a standalone unit, i.e. all
it needs is power and a telephone socket (ADSL enabled of course) and all
PC's connect wirelessly, or does one of the PC's have to be cable connected
to the unit, with the rest being wireless?

TIA

Liam

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Liam <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> A question about the 3Com® ADSL Wireless 11g Firewall Router which is
> currently bundled with a PC card. Is the router a standalone unit,
> i.e. all it needs is power and a telephone socket (ADSL enabled of
> course) and all PC's connect wirelessly, or does one of the PC's have
> to be cable connected to the unit, with the rest being wireless?
>
> TIA
>
> Liam

It has provision for 4 wired devices and a very large number (forget the
exact number) of wireless devices.

In *theory*, you can configure the router using a computer connected
wirelessly. However, 3Com recommend (and I strongly endorse) that you use a
*wired* device to configure it. It's all too easy to foul up the config -
especially when setting up wireless security - in such a way that it no
longer talks to your wireless devices. If you're relying on one of these to
be able to correct the config error, you're stuffed! [There *is* a manual
way of resetting it back to factory defaults - but you waste a lot of time
if you have to do that because you have to start from the very beginning
again!]
--
Cheers,
Tim
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is invalid.

Liam <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> A question about the 3Com® ADSL Wireless 11g Firewall Router which is
> currently bundled with a PC card. Is the router a standalone unit, i.e. all
> it needs is power and a telephone socket (ADSL enabled of course) and all
> PC's connect wirelessly, or does one of the PC's have to be cable connected
> to the unit, with the rest being wireless?
>

you need to connect with a cat 5 ethernet cable to do the inital setup -
you can't connect wirelesly until you have enabled the wireless parts of
the router.

After that the router can be as standalone as you mentioned.

On the Sat, 31 Jul 2004 21:25:55 +0100, Liam uttered forth the
following...
> Hi all,
>
> A question about the 3Com® ADSL Wireless 11g Firewall Router which is
> currently bundled with a PC card. Is the router a standalone unit, i.e. all
> it needs is power and a telephone socket (ADSL enabled of course) and all
> PC's connect wirelessly, or does one of the PC's have to be cable connected
> to the unit, with the rest being wireless?

you can do both with or without the other.. all wireless routers are the
same.

On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 21:25:55 +0100, "Liam" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>A question about the 3Com® ADSL Wireless 11g Firewall Router which is
>currently bundled with a PC card. Is the router a standalone unit, i.e. all
>it needs is power and a telephone socket (ADSL enabled of course) and all
>PC's connect wirelessly, or does one of the PC's have to be cable connected
>to the unit, with the rest being wireless?
>
>TIA
>
>Liam

Theoretically with some routers (not sure about the 3Com one) you do
need to use a wired connection at any point. However, if you do
something like set up encryption on the network you will immediately
disconnect yourself. If there are any subsequent errors with the
wireless network how will you get into the router to do diagnostics or
try to fix the problem?

Personally, although my set up is entirely wireless now, I still have
a cat5 cable and a 10/100 NIC in my laptop, should the need to use it
arise. I would not want to be without that second line of defense.

"Simon Pleasants" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 21:25:55 +0100, "Liam" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>

>
> Theoretically with some routers (not sure about the 3Com one) you do
> need to use a wired connection at any point. However, if you do
> something like set up encryption on the network you will immediately
> disconnect yourself. If there are any subsequent errors with the
> wireless network how will you get into the router to do diagnostics or
> try to fix the problem?
>
> Personally, although my set up is entirely wireless now, I still have
> a cat5 cable and a 10/100 NIC in my laptop, should the need to use it
> arise. I would not want to be without that second line of defense.

Yes understand a wired connection would be sensible for setup and if it
(wirefree) ever falls over, to gain access.

Thanks to all for the advice

Liam