What do I need for a wireless home network??

[PeteW]

Complete and utter newbie here, no idea what I need at all!

Its just for sharing broadband really, although it would be nice to be able to share files, printer, scanners etc.

We have NTL home Broadband and there are 3 PCs (maybe a 4th soon) needing access (one of which is a laptop).

All the PCs have ethernet cards in them at the moment.

So what equiptment do I need and where can I get it cheap..?

Cheers

[directhex]

Okay, firstly, how is the NTL Cable Modem connected? If it's via Ethernet, then you should be able to get a wireless router, and simply get wireless network cards for each machine (USB, PCI or PCMCIA as suits)

alternatively, use one machine as an always-on server with Internet Connection Sharing on it. just put in a wireless card in all machines & it'll work.

--jo

[PeteW]

Thanks for your help again Jo. At the moment the cable goes straight out the set-top-box into the ethernet card of whichever machine is using the internet.

Anyone know of any good deals on wireless routers and wireless network cards?

[Lexeus]

You want to have a look at www.ebuyer.com and www.scan.co.uk. On scans today only page, which lasts till Tuesday 10am, they have buffalo wireless network equipment on offer

[Aaron]

I've got a linksys 11g wireless router and a few of linksys 11g wireless cards (2 PCI, 1 laptop). Very easy to set-up, works great with my NTL BB connection.

The cheapest place I found was ebuyer.com

The 11g (54Mbps) router is ~£100 with the cards being about ~£50 each

They don't seem to do the Linksys 11b router (11MBps) but usually the 11b routers are ~£80 and the cards ~£35. To be honest, unless you regularly want to transfer large amounts of data, 11b is fast enough for home networking.

[Jiff Lemon]

Originally posted by Lexeus
You want to have a look at www.ebuyer.com and www.scan.co.uk. On scans today only page, which lasts till Tuesday 10am, they have buffalo wireless network equipment on offer

Got to go with this one - Got a Buffolo G54 bundle myself and it rox!

Superb router with Upnp capabilities. Latest firmwave supports WPSK authentication making it super secure.

[PeteW]

the Buffalo stuff works out to be around £250 (122 for router + pcmia 2 x 65 for the cards)

and the ebuyer stuff comes to about £265

bit more than we're looking to spend. Were can I find the slower (and cheaper!) 11b ones?

EDIT - found some at ebuyer - still about £180 for the kit i'd need. Is that as cheap as wireless gets then, cos even thats still out of our budget

thanks for your help though guys

[Lexeus]

If you are on a tightish budget (cant be on too tighter budget with wireless stuff) then i would recomened, as suggested earlier, ICS with one computer connected, saves the £60-£70 on the router, cuts you down to around £180-£190.
But i will see what i can find cheaper anyway.

[Lexeus]

could you list what you get for that price ? With prices as well if possible, i will browse some site for you and try find it cheaper

[PeteW]

heres what I found at ebuyer:

" U.S. Robotics Broadband 22mbps Wireless Router 044055 6 £69.91 £69.91
Ebuyer Wireless 22Mbps PCMCIA Card 048415 340 £24.41 £24.41
Ebuyer 22Mbps Wireless LAN PCI Card 048427 150 £27.90 £55.80
- remove item Cart Total: £150.12 "

+ VAT

I think I'll give up on this one though, I can live with wires wouldt want to spend much more than £100 really.

[Lexeus]

as long as you have a current wired LAN card, as you must have, you can make do with just the LAN cards for about £98 including the VAt and P&P, and ICS connection is fine for web browsing and most stuff