wireless/wired LAN

[blockers]

Hi.

Hopefully soon my family can some adsl power into our house...then the problem is networking it to 4/5 computers. For surfing, playing games, downloading

Looking at wired:
More hassle with the cabling, fast, reliable, i know it works well.

Looking at wireless:
Less hassle to install, dont really know anymore


Anyone got any ideas/advice/companies that produce good equipment. All of that would help me a lot.

Thanks very much

Will

[Zaphan58]

I would put down cables if you can it really is worth it, you can hide them easy enough and its much more reliable and faster not to mention a lot cheaper. Wireless is alright but its only rated to 11MBps as apposed to 100MBps of a standard wired network.

Last i heard wireless still wasnt that secure either, although there are things such as WEP that can lock it down to some extent. Ive also heard of things interfearing with the frequency that wireless works on, I cant remember what it was but there is some house hold device that can interfear with it. saying that though wireless isnt that bad, in the right place it has its uses, at the end of the day if you can go for a cabled network then do that, however if you need to go with wireless then do it its not that bad, just expensive.

[Aaron]

When I was a student we used to run wires all around the house. It was a complete mess but it worked.

Now, I've got a wireless network though and it rocks. I've got a Linksys Wireless-G router (54Mbps, compared with 100Mbps for a wired network) and a handful of cards - 3 PCI and 1 laptop card. It's a little on the expensive side but I found it extremely easy to set up (after reading the quick start guide) and it's been working without fail for around 3 months now - a lot longer than my old crusty wired hub would manage before dying.

For me the advantages would be:

Wired: Cheap hubs, potentially longer range, faster.

Wireless: More adaptable, great for laptops, less hassle, most wireless routers come with wired ports if you want to do half-wired/half-wireless.


Don't forget that if you use a router then you'll either need an ethernet based ADSL/cable modem or, if your modem is USB based, a computer directly connected to the modem which stays on to share the connection.

[skirkham]

what are the pings link on the Linksys ?
as ive seen reviews that show them to be pretty high

[Stoo]

Don't forget that if you use a router then you'll either need an ethernet based ADSL/cable modem or, if your modem is USB based, a computer directly connected to the modem which stays on to share the connection.

or get a wireless adsl router combo box

[plaz]

If you've got the money i'd go wireless definately.

[Aaron]

what are the pings link on the Linksys ?
as ive seen reviews that show them to be pretty high

When playing Counterstrike I usually ping around the 20ms mark. I'm on 600k NTL cable, BTW.

[Paul Adams]

I would go wired where possible, and only use WLAN access points for things like laptops.

Bandwidth over a WLAN is shared, remember, so with 5 PCs actively using even a 54Mbps link (which I believe never reaches that kind of speed in reality) they'd only be getting 1/5 of that apiece.

File copying from 1 PC to another over a WLAN might use up an unreasonable amount of the bandwidth for all wireless users, for example.

(Yes, the bottleneck will be the broadband connection, but if your LAN is being choked then it won't help any - probably just increase latency at best.)


My preferred solution would be:
- ADSL router with 1 ethernet port
- 100Mbps switch
- 54Mbps access point with WEP enabled*
- desktops with wired connections, laptops with wireless

* - for a home environment I would consider WEP to be sufficient, but for a commercial environment I would only ever look at LEAP or PEAP, WEP is inherently insecure currently

I would also put the access point in the DMZ of the router, okay it's only a logical separation rather than a physical one, but it's a comfort thing
I also personal-firewall all workstations, as an aside.

I much prefer the idea of physically separating routers, switches and access points so they can be individually swapped out (or turned off) as required.

[amoeba]

I have 10mb wireless and its great for everything - except copying files between machines.

If you dont really plan on copying files, I'd go 10mb rather than the expensive 54mb.

And remember - you _DONT_ need a 'router/access point' for a small network - you can run in a mode called 'Ad Hoc'.

[Ozymandias]

I'm using five 10mb adapters in ad-hoc mode - mixed vendors and no problems.

If I was doing it now I'd be tempted by an AP in order to use the (slightly) improved security of mac filtering etc. The next jump would be to 54g for improved speed and availability of wpa vs wep (it's looking increasingly unlikely that wpa will go into 802.11b devices). If you're paranoid changing the wep key in all clients is a pita.

Get rid of those wires

[garath]

could always hide the wires under the carpetting or stick them up all over the celing, thats what i did to link up 4 pcs in my student house.

[Wolf Man]

On wireless it is supposed to increase your ping by 10/15 ms or so I have heard, but then again 10ms isn't very much so I doubt you would notice it.

Wireless is the best option but quite on the expensive side so do what you can afford, just dont buy cheap wireless hardware or you will regret it after its poor performance.