Wireless Netork Advice Needed

Pretty new to this wi-fi lark and need some advice

I currently have two xp pro machines and an xp home laptop on a small home
network.

i have broadband going into one machine and i want to convert this to a
wireless network for the laptop. I wish to keep the other machines wired
although route the broadband connection so it is availiable to all three
without the others needed to be powered on and proxying the internet
connection.

I am in a loft conversion and will be approx 20 metres away from hub and
access point.

so...

Q1. Can i do this ok?

Q2. what wifi standard is best ??? i dont get all this g and b business im
after the defacto standard really

Q3. what is the cheapest way to do this? ..just router and access point??
and wifi card for laptop? what are the best makes or most economical and can
order online?.

i have a dell 2650 laptop with a type II pc expansion slot.

Q4. on setup do i simply plug broadband connection into router set ip to say
192.168.0.1 and then plug in roter to hub and access point to hub?
or something like that??

cheers.






---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.725 / Virus Database: 480 - Release Date: 19/07/2004

"paranoid-android" <paranoid-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<cgfd1d$4ef$(E-Mail Removed)>...
> Pretty new to this wi-fi lark and need some advice
>
> I currently have two xp pro machines and an xp home laptop on a small home
> network.
>
> i have broadband going into one machine and i want to convert this to a
> wireless network for the laptop. I wish to keep the other machines wired
> although route the broadband connection so it is availiable to all three
> without the others needed to be powered on and proxying the internet
> connection.
>
> I am in a loft conversion and will be approx 20 metres away from hub and
> access point.
>
> so...
>
> Q1. Can i do this ok?
>
> Q2. what wifi standard is best ??? i dont get all this g and b business im
> after the defacto standard really
>
> Q3. what is the cheapest way to do this? ..just router and access point??
> and wifi card for laptop? what are the best makes or most economical and can
> order online?.
>
> i have a dell 2650 laptop with a type II pc expansion slot.
>
> Q4. on setup do i simply plug broadband connection into router set ip to say
> 192.168.0.1 and then plug in roter to hub and access point to hub?
> or something like that??
>
> cheers.
>
>

A1. Yes - it should work.

A2. 802.11b runs at 11Mbps and 802.11g runs at 54Mbps. Neither one is
any better than the other really, except of course 11g is faster. As
your broadband connection is considerably slower than either of these,
you can choose which one you like. However, if you want to transfer
any data between either of your wired PCs and the wireless laptop then
go for 11g. (I went for 11g).

A3. Is it safe to assume that because you have a ....@ntlworld.com
email address, you have NTL broadband? If so, you could go for the
same solution as me and get a Netgear WGR614 Cable/DSL Wireless
Router. This isn't necessarily the cheapest solution, but it isn't
expensive either and it works fine for me. The WGR614 is a
Router/Access Point/4-port switch/firewall/DHCP server all in one box.
I connected the WGR614 to my cable modem. My son's PC upstairs has a
Netgear PCI card (which of course won't be any good for your laptop)
and connects via wireless to the WGR614. I have attached a 3COM switch
to the WGR614, and my tower PC and an HP print server connect to the
3COM switch (there is only one cat5 cable laid between the location of
the WGR614 and my PC/printer).
You could connect your 2 wired PCs to the WGR614 and your laptop would
connect via wireless. Of course there are always different opinions as
to which kit is any good or not (Netgear, Belkin etc etc), but mine
seems fine.

A4. The cable modem connects to the WGR614 and that should be all you
need (apart from the wireless card for the PC that is). It has a
default address of 192.168.0.1 on the LAN side (which you could change
if you wanted to) and will issue 192.168.0.x DCHP addresses to your
other kit.

Hope that helps.

Pete

many thanks for the help. : )