Is it worth to do this in my Uni room?

[unreal]

I'm going to UCE Birmingham next September to study at the Birmingham Institute of art and design and blah, and while I'm all very excited, I will have a laptop and it will be quite annoying always having to cable it to connect to the internet.

I assume there will be a wall socket for an ethernet cable, so what should I do to just have wireless in the room? I assume buy a WRT54GL or something, with a custom linux firmware thingy and stick it under the bed or something? I will probably connect an Xbox 360 to it too but I assume the internet will be severely crippled due to the UCE Network port/filtering restrictions so it may not really work but it's worth a try.

Anyone got any recommendations or is it just plain overall better to faff about with the ethernet cable every time?

Thanks!


Also I would buy my own internet subscription if the Uni network is severely restricted, I wonder if the Uni would allow that - let alone if it's possible lol.

[katana6434]

If they have got just an ehternet port in your room, I would have thought that they would already have a router there somewhere (not neccessaryily wireless). If that is the case all you would need would be an access point.

You would really need to find out how the rooms are setup for the internet.

[peterb]

You need to check the terms and conditions of your connection - they may say that tyyou cannot connect wireless devices or hubs/switches to the port. A long etehernet cable is probably the best/safest solution - it isn't THAT difficult to plug/unplug a cable

[unreal]

You need to check the terms and conditions of your connection - they may say that tyyou cannot connect wireless devices or hubs/switches to the port. A long etehernet cable is probably the best/safest solution - it isn't THAT difficult to plug/unplug a cable

Ah ok thanks guys, looks like I'm going to have to contact the Uni accomodation directly - I'll email them now I'm gonna see if I can haggle and get unrestricted internet too (worth a try!).

The cable isn't too much of a bother but after staying at my mates Uni room for a week it was really annoying. I mean if you wanted to use the laptop lazing about on the bed, or on the floor late at night, or on the desk, a bit of freedom would be nice.

So I would connect a wireless hub/router to the ethernet port? I'm not entirely sure what device would be best.

Thanks again!

[hajamie]

I just finished my first year at birmingham - the other one. They don't allow you to connect routers, and only allow you to connect one mac address to the network (which you set up at the beginning, but can change later). You could just ignore the rules, but they might kick you off the network - at birmingham they kicked you off for downloading too much - only for a day the first time, then three, then a week, and then I think they just banned you (I didn't get that far!). My mate had a router running through his PC for his PSP, and they didn't notice.
In uni they had a wireless network, which was cool.
J.

[unreal]

Oooh I wonder then what it will be like UCE - sounds like every University has different policies. In Brunel Uni, sites and most ports were restricted (couldn't even get on Xfire ) but you could plug anyones laptop into the Ethernet port and browse the net, and loads of people around the hall had their own private wireless network.

I've sent a detailed email to them and I'll see what response I get. Full internet access is quite important for me due to the whole music production thing, and I need to use apps like AIM to talk to musicians and SmartFTP to manage all the files at my host, since I use it to transfer large .WAV files to clients, along with a million other things (and I want to play Xbox live in my room ).

[nicho12]

I just finished my first year at exeter university...
the network was a bit restricting...but I found that if i just emailed the techies then they would enable most applications and open most ports..
The only stuff they don't really allow is stuff like P2P and torrenting (but if you can tunnel then you could prob get torrent to work)
so really there probably isnt much need t oget your own connection

[MarcLister]

My Uni blocks us from seeing other PCs on the network in our halls of residence. I can understand why though. We're also banned from connecting routers/access points etc but I can't really see how they'd find out? The ISD department are quite widely regarded as erm...being a joke.

[finlay666]

My Uni blocks us from seeing other PCs on the network in our halls of residence. I can understand why though. We're also banned from connecting routers/access points etc but I can't really see how they'd find out? The ISD department are quite widely regarded as erm...being a joke.

mine were too lol

EVERYONE showed up on itunes as sharing music, was really usefull as it meant I saved money on iTunes by streaming others stuff lol

[latrosicarius]

If you use a wireless router, don't utilize the uplink port. You will want to use it in switch mode, which means (1) going into http://192.168.0.1/ and disabling DHCP, and (2) plugging it into the wall using one of the 4 device ports.

[dave87]

In which case you may aswell just use a switch. UEA never moaned about me using a switch, instead they restricted the number of MAC addresses that could be registered by each user.

[Sinizter]

If the room does not have telephone lines already in, they are certainly not going to let you put one it.

As for the T+Cs not allowing wireless connections, who really cares? Secure it and dont name it uni halls or something stupid and they are unlikely to ever look into it. Just dont leave it open as it could cause problems for you if you have to log in and stuff.

Also if it requires login and a cookie, not sure whether you can use a router like the WRT54 series without using a computer as a server. The router might not retain the login cookie on it.

An access point would work, because all it would is bridge the wireless to the wired and let your halls router to do the work.

Also if your library or other student places is anywhere near the halls, you might be able to log onto the university wireless connection - which you might be able to receive in your halls.

When I was at uni, the library wireless used to reach my room, allowing me wireless connections without any additional hardware in my room. I also had my ethernet port which I used for my desktop.

If it was anything like my uni, you will need a PC to distribute the internet between different machines in your room, unless you plan disconnect/reconnect devices as required. I also dont think youre going to have much luck with XBox gaming, although that will depend on the network itself. The part of the network to my room had such horrendous lag that sometimes it felt like shouting 1s and 0s down a phone might be quicker. Other times is was bearable. It was never good.

Also all ports were blocked and each PC was on a separate subnet. So no peeking into other people's network shares. Upload bandwidth was capped at 40kbps. All in all a fairly useless connection for anything but basic browsing.