What kind of wireless network setup?

[RufusKing]

I was going to buy a wireless network setup for use at home, becuase for various reasons my computers are always being moved around and and trailing the network cables around the place is a pain.

The set-up I would need would have to include....

1x PCMCIA Lappy Wireless Card
2x PCI Wireless Network Cards
1x Some kind of wireless transmitter

and also it would be really useful for the odd LAN session to have a second wireless access point hooked up to a router for visiting LANers to hook up normally, but still save me the hassle of trailing a cable from upstairs all the way down. Is that possible?

My budget is £70 max, does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks for your help

-Leonard

[menthel]

I think you are pushing it a bit for £70 and all of that. Perhaps about £120-150. I would get a adsl modem/router/wireless combo as a base and build from there. Some that you can get come as a package in most places. For example, the netgear dg834g can be found on amazon or ebuyer with either a pci or pcmcia card. About £70 to £80 i think, and then go from there. Sticking to the same brand is a good idea, although not essential.

[RufusKing]

I already have an existing wired network modem and router which still needs to stay in place as it has a few servers on it, and wireless would be pretty pointless on them. Is it possible just to get a couple of access points that could communicate with the wirless LAN cards (which I thought would be an obvious one), and have two access points so that if one had the Router on one side going to the access point, and then the second access point goes out to a normal hub... would that mean you could have a wired network using the DHCP of the router but over the wireless...

Not sure if that made sense... if not I will do a diagram using text to explain myself better.

-Leonard

[RVF500]

Unless you are covering a pretty large area then you won't need 2 access points. Just one from your router. You should then be able to use the DHCP function as the wireless will just be seen as a LAN similarly as if you had a switch hanging off that port.

Costwise, with PCMCIA cards coming in at around £20 - £30 and PC wireless cards at around the same sort of price then add an AP for around £40 - £50 you will struggle to get under your budget. £100 would probably be more realistic. And you would be looking at the low end of the market at that. You may lose some features that you can't hand off to your router i.e. security. Unless you have a RADIUS server on your servers for example.

[RufusKing]

So I guess I need a router instead of just an access point if I want to keep the netwrok private? Or I guess everyone in a 800 foot radius (or whatever it would be) could use my net connection... is that right?

[malfunction]

If your budget is limited you don't need to buy an access point - you could use one of your PCs as a 'router' / access point between the WLAN and the net (i.e. it has wired and wireless connections) and just set all the cards in ad hoc mode... Would be easiest if you are already using a PC as a router or if your wired router has a PCMCIA port or maybe a USB port.

[RVF500]

Not necessarily. Select an AP that can handle at least basic encryption such as WEP or a pre-shared key or both. MAC address filtering is also a simple way of keeping the bad guys at bay and is a standard security feature. But the best way of all is not to transmit that far. If you can turn down the power of the transmitter so that it only works in the immediate vicinity then no-one knows you are there and can't jump on.

http://www.d-link.co.uk/?go=jN7uAYLx...7n2KDmKE0QuOLe

Will set you back around £50, has security features and also works as either a DHCP client or server. Only leaves you £20 in your budget though. Has a 10/100 port so should be able to hang straight off a router port.

[malfunction]

So I guess I need a router instead of just an access point if I want to keep the netwrok private? Or I guess everyone in a 800 foot radius (or whatever it would be) could use my net connection... is that right?

An access point should have mac address restriction so that's one easy way to restrict access beyond the AP (i.e. to your wired network / the net)... Buying an all in one (modem / router / AP) would still be an idea though - they usually have at least 4 wired ports as well so you could either just use an additional switch if needed or hang your wired router off it.

Edit: Beaten to it on the mac address restriction...

[RVF500]

Been having a bit of a think about this. From what you've said you have an existing LAN with servers on. Using the router as a DHCP server? Adding the wireless will create a seperate LAN. The easiest way I think (given the way I think your network is put together) would be to set the AP up as a DHCP client and let the router carry on handling the addressing scheme. I'm assuming that you are NATing at the router. If it doesn't work then you may need to give the link to the AP it's own subnet. Splitting your current addresses by using subnet masking. I guess you are using private addressing 10.0.0.0, 172.16.0.0 or 192.168.0.0? Configure the AP as a DHCP server and set up your NICs with the router interface as the default gateway. If you use a contiguous network addressing scheme then the NAT pool needn't be fooled around with. That's if your router allows you to manipulate it in the first place.

If I've been preaching to the choir and you already know all the networking stuff then please accept my apologies.

Edit: Good idea about the dual NIC card layout on the PC. I spend too much time with high end routed/switched networks I must look for the simple solutions.

[RufusKing]

I'm pretty confident with networking, but I always welcome advice becuase although I know the basics well, I still have plenty to learn, so its all appreciated! Wireless networking however I suck at!

The router is acting as DHCP, and all your other assumptions are pretty spot on! I had a look at the D-Link AP link you posted, and it looks just like what I need. EBuyer however has a review on it from one bloke who insists they are flawed.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=54065

Do you have any experience with this item? I've known a few D-Link users and they've all been happy with them.

Also, do you know how many user can use an AP at once? I'm sure i wont ever need more then the limit (as long as its more then 3!). One more thing too I was wondering about... what would be the advantage would be using bluetooth for the wireless network?

Thanks again for your help

-Leonard

[RVF500]

Bluetooth and wireless had an issue which they were working on. Bluetooth essentially jammed wireless. Not sure where they got with that. The limits of a wireless network are pretty large. You're looking at a 54 Mbps bandwidth so the bottleneck would be at the ADSL point which will be running at 512 Kbps - 1 Mbps typically. 3 devices isn't going to stress your wireless network.

I haven't got any knowledge myself of D-link equipment so I can't comment I'm afraid. Any network device can be unstable so the best bet is to look at a number of reviews.