Setting up a LAN that can access internet through existing wireless LAN

[Xandos]

Hi guys. I'm in an office space where we are provided (awful) WiFi. I would like to create a wired network between a few colleagues, set up a nas etc. The difficulty is that a couple of these machines that need to be able to connect are macbook airs which don't have network ports. So a wired and wireless router seems to make sense... The trouble is how to get the internet to be available through the newly set up router... Is there a way for it to act as a gateway to the existing wireless internet so that laptops connected to our WiFi can still get online? We *should* have some limited "support" from the buildings IT (I dunno they might make a setting change on their router or something).

I'm sure this is a very simple and common problem but my networking knowledge isn't great so any advice is well appreciated.

 

[Xandos]

Thanks for the reply.

I've just looked up what a wireless access point is... My understanding is that I could plug that into a wired switch or router and that would allow devices to access that switch wirelessly.

But when those laptops connect wirelessly to our wired network, which has no internet connection, how would they be able to access the internet and our network resources through the same connection?

On proper computers we can just use wireless to get internet and wired for resources, but that's not possible for the laptops...

 

[Xandos]

Thanks. Steve is correct in what I am trying to achieve, sorry for not being clearer. What do you mean by dedicated internet circuit? The office we are renting has a WiFi LAN to serve internet. There are network ports in the walls but dunno if they're gigabit. It seemed to me a nice idea to have our own network and just use their internet if possible. We'll tell IT about it but last I heard they took two weeks to enable a wall plug.

So with a wireless repeater would one connect that to the wired switch and it would feed internet into devices connected to that LAN?