simple question about Linksys WRT54GL

ferret face · 18 Jul 2007 at 19:25

Hi guys,

I have a cable modem can I connect 1 pc to the Linksys router via Cat 5 cabling and have a laptop working at the same time via wireless?

Cheers

Ferret

Snapshot · 18 Jul 2007 at 20:17

You can have up to 250 PCs and laptops connected by any mix of wired and wireless that suits you.

ferret face · 18 Jul 2007 at 20:42

cheers snapshot

ferret

Snapshot · 19 Jul 2007 at 06:25

To elaborate a bit, the router uses something called Network Address Translation (NAT) to convert the IP addresses used on its LAN to the single address supplied by the ISP. It has the responsiblity of working out from which client the traffic originated and routing the replies back to it. But that's what routers do so we shouldn't be too surprised that it works...

This has the added benefit of hiding your LAN IP addresses from the internet, adding a certain amount of security to your LAN. This is especially true for ADSL where the USB modems commonly supplied by the ISP offer no protection at all so replacing them with anything offering NAT is an improvement.

tolien · 19 Jul 2007 at 14:57

Snapshot said:
This is especially true for ADSL where the USB modems commonly supplied by the ISP offer no protection at all so replacing them with anything offering NAT is an improvement.

It's no different from cable, where the SACM offers no protection either.

Snapshot · 20 Jul 2007 at 06:24

Thanks. I've not had the (mis?)fortune to work on any cable installations so didn't know. Where I used to live in west London didn't have broadband available on cable and out here in the sticks there isn't even a cable.