What do I need to go wireless?

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tdomil

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I'm networking stupid, could someone please tell me what I need to buy? I have a cable modem and a laptop. I would like to be able to use the laptop anywhere in the house. I'm assuming I need to buy some kind of wireless hub or router.

I've been looking at CompUSA(only because I have a credit card there and I just want to order it online and be done with it), but I have no idea what to get. Once I buy a wireless hub or router, do I also need to buy some kind of wireless PC card to go with it...or do the hubs/routers come with one?

All I'm looking for is something that I can plug the cable modem into that will have a wirless connection with my laptop, and I'm assuming that I need some kind of PC card that will interact with that device.

Some time in the future, I'm getting a desktop that I'll also want to connect to it.

What do you reccomend? What's the cheapest? Do I need a hub or router?
 
In my opinion, the two brands you should look into are Linksys and Netgear. These wireless routers are the easiest to configure and the manuals are very well written. The routers themselves are very intuative so the user does almost no work at all. The BEST thing for you to do is to look into a wireless router that comes with a wireless PCMCIA card for a laptop. Make sure that you look at "802.11b" as this is fine for what you are looking for....

The package for the router/wireless card combo should be around $100 or so (More like $120 for CompUSA). The router that you get will also have ports so that you can connect a Desktop PC with a cabled network card later on. You could also install another wireless NIC on the computer as well though.

Hope this helps...

-Michael
 
I use the Linksys WRt54G Router with 2 WUSB11 Adaptors for my additional 2 PC's. I just plug my PC directly into the Router with a standard RJ45 Cable. You'll need the PCMCIA card for your laptop. But it's basically Plug & Play. The Laptop part is WPC54G & That's Wireless. Try Linksys Website. http://www.linksys.com/
 
Linksys is good.

Things to look out for...

Does your laptop have Wi-Fi built in? If so, make sure that you get a compatable router. Some laptops have built in 802.11b, some 802.11c, etc.

Some of these standards are reverse compatable, some are not (like the centrino POC's). Also, make sure that the router is also a hub. Most are. I have a MS (not by choice) wilreless router and it works. It just has a crappy range.
 
I use a D-link router and am quite happy with it. It has external antenna jacks that are great for extending your range. If you attach a high gain antenna you can cover like 1/4 mile, but then if you don't use WEP's you pretty much give everyone in the neighborhood free wireless.
 
i have a linksys wireless router set up directly to my dsl modems. and in the router settings i set it to PPPoE and then put in my dsl password and username so i am connected all the time. then each of the desktops has a PCI wirless card in it. i beleive they have the U.S. Robotics 22mbps cards. then the laptop has a 22mbps card also. on the back of the router it has the ethernet port for the modem to plug into, then has 4 other ports for computers/games/whatever. the router was about 80 dollars and the pci cards were 50 a peice and the laptop pc card was 40 i think.
 
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