Bye Bye To Wires.

[mcornelio]

okay. wiki says a is faster than g. so why did u recomend g?

[resistanze]

I have a Netgear wireless "G" router in my basement. It's connected to the basement computer (by wire), My sis' 2nd floor computer (Wireless USB Adapter), and my new laptop (Wifi) also on the 2nd floor.

A. Is Wifi Really Slow?

Not really, 802.11g is pretty fast. My internet is 5Mbps (about 625 KB/sec max) when wired to the modem. On the second floor I'm still getting a download speed of at about 3Mbps (375KB/s) and sometimes up to 600KB/sec

B. Is All I Need A Wireless Wifi Card Installed On The Laptop And A Router Or Do I Need To Get Something Else

That's it, just connect the router to your cable modem. If you want to connect any desktop computers they must have a PCI wireless card or a USB adapter.

C. My Cousin Said The First Thing I Should Do Is Secure My Wireless Network, That I Dont Even Have Yet. So How Do I Go About Doing This.

You secure it after installing your wireless router. In my case, I didn't even bother installing any of Netgear's useless software. I just connected the router and XP automatically detected my connection.

The first time I opened my internet browser, a Netgear screen promted me to name my SSID Network and choose security (WEP or WPA), a password computers will have to enter to access your router.

D. Are Their Different Types Of Wifi. I Was Looking At The Modems Online And They Have Like A. B. and G. Or Other Letters.

B is old, not usually sold anymore. G is backwards compatible with B and has better bandwidth (55Mbps vs 11) and better range. A is not usually used in residential areas.

[Slomo]

okay. wiki says a is faster than g. so why did u recomend g?

a works on a different band (5GHz) and you need a licence for that part of the spectrum. And it is not faster. It's max speed is 54Mbps which is the same as g.

b and g anf the fuutre n run on 2.4GHz no licences are needed for this part of the spectrum (basically it's the freq where your microwave owen is operating )


Edit: I checked and it seems that in the US the 5GHz is also unlicensed. But the range of the a standard is smaller because of it's high freq. and therefore less popular.

[Bob Lanier]

The Wire Is The Best Show Ever Made On American Television.

[mcornelio]

okay the one im pulling for, because of price is this one... heres the description.. what do u guys think. speak now or forever shut the up.?

The WRT54G comes in Linksys' usual purple and grey plastic box. All indicator lights are on the front of the box and are bright and viewable from a wide angle. The indicators include Link/Activity, Full/Collision and 100Mbps for the four 10/100 LAN ports and one 10/100 Ethernet WAN connection, separate Activity and Link lights for the wireless LAN connection, and Power, Diag, DMZ general indicators.

The DMZ indicator is supposed to be lit whenever the DMZ feature - which opens up all ports to one selected LAN machine - is enabled, but I couldn't get it to light. Linksys appears to have improved the function of the wireless Activity LED, so that it blinks only when there is wireless activity instead of constantly as it did on the WAP54G. The wireless Link LED is actually more of a wireless On/Off indicator, and shuts off only when you set the Wireless Mode selector in the admin interface to Disabled and shut off the router's radio.


Four 10/100 LAN ports, one 10/100 WAN port and power jack are on the rear panel, along with the Reset switch, which serves both reboot and reset-to-factory-defaults functions. Note that all ports are auto MDI / MDI-X which means they'll figure out how to connect to whatever you plug into them, including switches or hubs if you decide to expand the number of ports.

Linksys includes a wall-mounting plate that does double-duty as an adapter to allow Linksys' smaller boxes (such as their 5 port switch) to be stacked with their "normal" sized boxes. Also included are a CD with the PDF User Guide and Windows-based Setup Wizard, normal UTP Ethernet cable, and second CD with a trial version of Symantec's Norton Internet Security suite.

[dougp]

a works on a different band (5GHz) and you need a licence for that part of the spectrum. And it is not faster. It's max speed is 54Mbps which is the same as g.

b and g anf the fuutre n run on 2.4GHz no licences are needed for this part of the spectrum (basically it's the freq where your microwave owen is operating )

After working on my Net+ and Security+, I've never heard you need a licence for running G, seeing as how when I pop into my "View Available Wireless Networks" I can see a buttload of the SBC DSL G networks available.

Personally, G is better imo because if you have a 2.4Ghz phone, you could cause your internet to drop everytime you make a call, etc. ... it makes for funny situations at lan parties though, hah.

[Slomo]

After working on my Net+ and Security+, I've never heard you need a licence for running G, seeing as how when I pop into my "View Available Wireless Networks" I can see a buttload of the SBC DSL G networks available.

Personally, G is better imo because if you have a 2.4Ghz phone, you could cause your internet to drop everytime you make a call, etc. ... it makes for funny situations at lan parties though, hah.

I just edited my post. You don't need a licence for a in the US (the jury is still out in the EU about that). But because of it's higher frequency you get two things:

1.- less interference because other devices (phones, microwaves...) are not using the same freq.

2.- less range, because the higher freq. signal is less capable of penetrating walls and other obstacles, that's probably why it's not so popular.

[dougp]

I just edited my post. You don't need a licence for a in the US (the jury is still out in the EU about that). But because of it's higher frequency you get two things:

1.- less interference because other devices (phones, microwaves...) are not using the same freq.

2.- less range, because the higher freq. signal is less capable of penetrating walls and other obstacles, that's probably why it's not so popular.

Really though, range should never be much of an issue unless you live in a large house, or it's a bomb shelter. I can normally snag 100% signal anywhere in my 600sqft apartment from mine, but I just got the pimpest wireless card

[Slomo]

Really though, range should never be much of an issue unless you live in a large house, or it's a bomb shelter. I can normally snag 100% signal anywhere in my 600sqft apartment from mine, but I just got the pimpest wireless card

Well wooden par ion walls or dry wall do not represent any major obstacles for radio waves - and still the drop will be more significant in the a spectrum than in the g. The moment you start talking about reinforced concrete and bricks (the prefered building materials in Europe) the difference is really noticeable. I've done installations in a hotel that is entirely made of reinforced concrete and I don't know what the investor was expecting (WWIII?) they were at least double the normal thickness. We ended up doing a full survey of the site with a very expensive intrument from Fluke Networks because the signal would drop from -35dB to -89dB (100% to 0) in the space of a few meters and we just didn't trust the info from our laptops.

Oh and we were using commercial grade access points with pro antennas. Crazy stuff.

[johnsmith]

Really though, range should never be much of an issue unless you live in a large house, or it's a bomb shelter. I can normally snag 100% signal anywhere in my 600sqft apartment from mine, but I just got the pimpest wireless card

600 whole feet........finally hit the big time eh?

[mcornelio]

lol at johnsmith and what do you guys think about the router that im thinking of getting?

The WRT54G comes in Linksys' usual purple and grey plastic box. All indicator lights are on the front of the box and are bright and viewable from a wide angle. The indicators include Link/Activity, Full/Collision and 100Mbps for the four 10/100 LAN ports and one 10/100 Ethernet WAN connection, separate Activity and Link lights for the wireless LAN connection, and Power, Diag, DMZ general indicators.

The DMZ indicator is supposed to be lit whenever the DMZ feature - which opens up all ports to one selected LAN machine - is enabled, but I couldn't get it to light. Linksys appears to have improved the function of the wireless Activity LED, so that it blinks only when there is wireless activity instead of constantly as it did on the WAP54G. The wireless Link LED is actually more of a wireless On/Off indicator, and shuts off only when you set the Wireless Mode selector in the admin interface to Disabled and shut off the router's radio.


Four 10/100 LAN ports, one 10/100 WAN port and power jack are on the rear panel, along with the Reset switch, which serves both reboot and reset-to-factory-defaults functions. Note that all ports are auto MDI / MDI-X which means they'll figure out how to connect to whatever you plug into them, including switches or hubs if you decide to expand the number of ports.

Linksys includes a wall-mounting plate that does double-duty as an adapter to allow Linksys' smaller boxes (such as their 5 port switch) to be stacked with their "normal" sized boxes. Also included are a CD with the PDF User Guide and Windows-based Setup Wizard, normal UTP Ethernet cable, and second CD with a trial version of Symantec's Norton Internet Security suite.

[mcornelio]

PS. I Live in the caribean and im in a really really huge house... like 1500 sdq feet. of course im not gonna be using it from the whole house just my room, but their are a few concrete walls between where im mostly going to be using the laptop and where im thinking of putting the router. should i be worried?

[johnsmith]

lol at johnsmith and what do you guys think about the router that im thinking of getting?

The WRT54G comes in Linksys' usual purple and grey plastic box. All indicator lights are on the front of the box and are bright and viewable from a wide angle. The indicators include Link/Activity, Full/Collision and 100Mbps for the four 10/100 LAN ports and one 10/100 Ethernet WAN connection, separate Activity and Link lights for the wireless LAN connection, and Power, Diag, DMZ general indicators.

The DMZ indicator is supposed to be lit whenever the DMZ feature - which opens up all ports to one selected LAN machine - is enabled, but I couldn't get it to light. Linksys appears to have improved the function of the wireless Activity LED, so that it blinks only when there is wireless activity instead of constantly as it did on the WAP54G. The wireless Link LED is actually more of a wireless On/Off indicator, and shuts off only when you set the Wireless Mode selector in the admin interface to Disabled and shut off the router's radio.


Four 10/100 LAN ports, one 10/100 WAN port and power jack are on the rear panel, along with the Reset switch, which serves both reboot and reset-to-factory-defaults functions. Note that all ports are auto MDI / MDI-X which means they'll figure out how to connect to whatever you plug into them, including switches or hubs if you decide to expand the number of ports.

Linksys includes a wall-mounting plate that does double-duty as an adapter to allow Linksys' smaller boxes (such as their 5 port switch) to be stacked with their "normal" sized boxes. Also included are a CD with the PDF User Guide and Windows-based Setup Wizard, normal UTP Ethernet cable, and second CD with a trial version of Symantec's Norton Internet Security suite.

Psst, lol with me, not at me.........now you are just hurting my feelers.

[Slomo]

I'm not familiar with that router, but I do not think you need to setup the DMZ. DMZ is used for having a server on your network that is available to the internet (and similar stuff).

A couple of walls, if they are not crazy thick shouldn't be a problem but you'll know after trying (sorry no other way )

[Slomo]

I just pulled the manula for your router from their website. Forget about the DMZ unless you know exactly what you are doing.

[johnsmith]

I just pulled the manula for your router from their website. Forget about the DMZ unless you know exactly what you are doing.

Ahhh, the De-Militarized Zone........Nam was brutal wasn't it?

[mcornelio]

can i still use it without turning on the dmz feature? is it a good router is what im asking i just want it to use the internet

[Slomo]

can i still use it without turning on the dmz feature? is it a good router is what im asking i just want it to use the internet

The router is fine. Actually, if the walls are a problem and moving the router is not an option you can even order special antenas for it that will give you a stronger signal.

The DMZ feature is a special setup that has nothing to do with you surfing the net or e-mailing or any of the regular stuff that you do on the internets. Just switch on the router, connect the ethernet cable from your DSL/cable modem and switch on the notebook. Go through the installation procedure and the first time do it without enabling any security features. When you have the whole thing working go back and enable the security (I strongly recomend WPA) features. Careful you need to enable security with the same settings on both the router and your computer(s).

[mcornelio]

whats the diff between wep and wpa?

[Zunni]

WPA is tighter security.

[Duff McCartney]

how do i check if my dell wifi card is a b or g... anyway let me holla at the wiki, before i make myself look stupid. thanks guys. ohh and question. ill probably be downloading alot of games and dvd and other crap from the internet. will the difference in download speeds between wireless and ethernet be different?... lol johnsmith your a . i dont type in all caps, its that when i learned type when i was small they taught me to keep my pinky finger on the shift key and every word would start with a capital. and i do it automatically. i know its stupid but its become like second nature and ive been trying to stop it with no luck.

If I'm not mistaken most cards are a/b/g compatible already so you don't really need to check it.

I would suggest D Link though..I've heard (from this board and at work) that Linksys gives people lots of problems.

[baseline bum]

WEP is much easier to crack than WPA. Any WEP system can be cracked in a passive attack with 2 weeks of packet sniffing with no way you'd ever be able to know. Or, an active attack where the cracker injects huge amounts of data into your network to get enough ACKs back to crack it can also be done quickly, but this can be easily detected unlike the first option.

When you set your password, never type in a word as your WEP key. It'll get hashed into something (usually by MD5), but then all a UNIX cracker needs is to hash a dictionary with MD5 and do a very quick attack to get your WEP key.

I believe WPA puts a different key on every packet, making it much harder to crack than WEP, which has the same key for all of them.

[mcornelio]

really who the wants to hack my computer anyway? steal all my columbian bukake movies?

[baseline bum]

Cracking WEP isn't about hacking into your computer. It's about stealing your bandwidth on your connection.

[Slomo]

Cracking WEP isn't about hacking into your computer. It's about stealing your bandwidth on your connection.

Or using your connection (which at your ISP is registered to your name) to do stuff on the internet (ie SPAM).