Wired > Wireless Network

Hi all,

I currently have a home network running off a Netgear DG814 router. I use
my laptop with the router with good ol' ethernet cable, however I fancy
going wireless, but at the cheapest possible price.

I've seen a WLAN card for £20 from Maplin, however what could I do about the
router? I'd prefer not to fork out £100ish to replace it with a wireless
one. Is there some sort of device that'd connect to the router to provide
wireless access? Kind of like adding a hub to give me more ethernet ports,
but instead of them being wired, have them wireless?

Hope that made sense.. it's 4am ;-)

Cheers.




Mr Balloon

What I beleive you can do is if you only want to have one wireless client,
simply put a wireless card in an existing PC and create a bridge between the
two networks. This is an ad-hoc wireless setup, which only works between 2
machines.

Not sure about wireless hubs but maybe someone else can lighten your
darkness??

Mr Balloon wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I currently have a home network running off a Netgear DG814 router.
> I use my laptop with the router with good ol' ethernet cable, however
> I fancy going wireless, but at the cheapest possible price.
>
> I've seen a WLAN card for £20 from Maplin, however what could I do
> about the router? I'd prefer not to fork out £100ish to replace it
> with a wireless one. Is there some sort of device that'd connect to
> the router to provide wireless access? Kind of like adding a hub to
> give me more ethernet ports, but instead of them being wired, have
> them wireless?
>
> Hope that made sense.. it's 4am ;-)
>
> Cheers.

George Hewitt wrote:
> What I beleive you can do is if you only want to have one wireless
> client, simply put a wireless card in an existing PC and create a
> bridge between the two networks. This is an ad-hoc wireless setup,
> which only works between 2 machines.
>
> Not sure about wireless hubs but maybe someone else can lighten your
> darkness??

Hi George,

Thanks for that.. Possibly something I'll look into.

> Hi all,
>
> I currently have a home network running off a Netgear DG814 router. I use
> my laptop with the router with good ol' ethernet cable, however I fancy
> going wireless, but at the cheapest possible price.
>
> I've seen a WLAN card for £20 from Maplin, however what could I do about
the
> router? I'd prefer not to fork out £100ish to replace it with a wireless
> one. Is there some sort of device that'd connect to the router to provide
> wireless access? Kind of like adding a hub to give me more ethernet
ports,
> but instead of them being wired, have them wireless?
>
> Hope that made sense.. it's 4am ;-)


I think u might be able to get a wireless access point that will solve your
problem.....althogh dont quote me on that cus i'm still trying to get my
head around what i'll need when my exchange is ADSL enabled!

See here anyway :- http://tinyurl.com/swxh


--
Cheers, Stu
ICQ #55605961

Stu Duckworth wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>
> I think u might be able to get a wireless access point that will
> solve your problem.....althogh dont quote me on that cus i'm still
> trying to get my head around what i'll need when my exchange is ADSL
> enabled!
>
Yup that about right. I already have an ADSL router, and I wanted to add
wireless capability to my home network without going through the expense of
replacing my existing router.

You can buy a wireless access point. This is somewhat cheaper (but not
hugely - 20 to 30 quid) than a full wireless
ADSL router, and in my my case (DLINK DWL-2000AP) has a single ethernet port
on the back which you connect to your existing ADSL router or switch. Your
wireless clients then connect to the access point and gain access to your
home network.

I'd suggest you buy a unit that has WEP security. WEP has some flaws but is
better than nothing, and will thwart "casual" snoopers.

--
Peter <X-Files Fan>
Please Note: Emailed replies cc'd / bcc'd , containing HTML or attachments
auto-binned as spam

Trust No One® wrote:
>
> Yup that about right. I already have an ADSL router, and I wanted to
> add wireless capability to my home network without going through the
> expense of replacing my existing router.
>
> You can buy a wireless access point. This is somewhat cheaper (but not
> hugely - 20 to 30 quid) than a full wireless
> ADSL router, and in my my case (DLINK DWL-2000AP) has a single
> ethernet port on the back which you connect to your existing ADSL
> router or switch. Your wireless clients then connect to the access
> point and gain access to your home network.
>
> I'd suggest you buy a unit that has WEP security. WEP has some flaws
> but is better than nothing, and will thwart "casual" snoopers.

Okay guys, I went ahead and did it.

My DG814 ADSL router now has a wireless access point connected to it, and my
laptop wirelessly via that and a PCMCIA WLAN card. (If anyone out there is
thinking about a similar set up, it's very easy to do.) The cost involved
for both pieces of kit was less than £100. (Of course, I had the ADSL
router already). I think I'd be ready to answer questions if anyone wanted
something similar but wanted something answering first... :-)

Couple of questions though.

1) How many devices can you attach wirelessly to one of these access
points.

2) I have 256 bit WEP encryption active. However, the previous poster said
that it had some flaws. What are these? What can I do to my connection to
tighten things up a touch?

Cheers.

In message <3fa18ce2$0$238$(E-Mail Removed)>, Mr Balloon
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>2) I have 256 bit WEP encryption active. However, the previous poster said
>that it had some flaws. What are these? What can I do to my connection to
>tighten things up a touch?
>

With a strong encryption system, you would expect the time taken to
'crack' the encryption to be exponential to the number of bits so that a
64 bit encryption would take 2^32 (=4294967296) times as long to crack
as a 32 bit encryption and 128 bit encryption would take 2^64
(=18446744073709551616) times as long to crack as the 64 bit encryption.
(I'm not even going to bother to tell you how much longer a 256 bit
encryption takes relative to the 128 bit encryption but it is *very*
big).

However, AIUI, there is a flaw in the WEP encryption system as a whole
which leaves it vulnerable to a particular kind of attack which can
crack the key in near linear (as opposed to exponential) time. Thus 64
bit encryption only takes twice as long as 32 bit encryption and 128 bit
only takes twice as long as 64 bit encryption. Similarly, your 256 bit
encryption would only take twice as long as the 128 bit encryption.

However, as the previous poster said, Even WEP is better than nothing
because to will prevent casual attacks.

--
Wade Oram
Reply address valid for at least 1 calendar month from date of posting.

"Mr Balloon" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<3fa18ce2$0$238$(E-Mail Removed)> ...

> Okay guys, I went ahead and did it.

> 1) How many devices can you attach wirelessly to one of these access
> points.

To the best of my knowledge it is 256 minus one or two.

This would obviously really slow down your speed as all Wireless data
across one access point is shared.

> 2) I have 256 bit WEP encryption active. However, the previous poster said
> that it had some flaws. What are these? What can I do to my connection to
> tighten things up a touch?

I must admit that, owing to a slight problem with one of my cards I
haven't bothered with WEP, it does slow down data slightly.

The MAC access is a useful and easy security feature.

One thing I have found with WiFi though is that it does NOT do what it
claims on the box.

Manufacturer ranges indoors are wildly optimistic and numerous normal
everyday things can have an effect on the range.

Geoff Lane

In article <3fa18ce2$0$238$(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed), a.k.a Mr Balloon says...


> My DG814 ADSL router now has a wireless access point connected to it, and my
> laptop wirelessly via that and a PCMCIA WLAN card.

What kit did you get, or better still, what kit would others recommend
is got?

I am in a similar situation, having a desire to go wireless with the
lappy when downstairs (leaving the wired stuff upstairs) but haven't
really figured out which kit to buy. I've got a Draytek 2600 ADSL
router/modem FWIW.

TX2 wrote:
>
> I am in a similar situation, having a desire to go wireless with the
> lappy when downstairs (leaving the wired stuff upstairs) but haven't
> really figured out which kit to buy. I've got a Draytek 2600 ADSL
> router/modem FWIW.

I'd already bought the Netgear DG814 ADSL router a while back. To this I
added a Trust Wireless Access Point (£80) and a Binatone WLAN card (On offer
for £20), both from Maplin. I'd bought something else from Maplin, and
they're doing a voucher offer at the minute that gets you £10 off anything
£100+, so I did okay I think.. (I was too lazy to check other online
retailers). Time spent setting it all up was less than an hour. I simply
plugged the WAP into my router and away I went. I changed my subnet mask
(from 255.255.255.0 to 255.255.0.0 then back again) to change the default IP
of the WAP from 192.168.1.1. to an address beginning 192.168.0, but that was
it.

Performance has been good. I can stream video through to my laptop from any
room in the house and still get away with web browsing et al. For £100, I'm
well pleased with it. As another poster pointed out though, the
construction of your house may well affect performance.