Uni + Wireless

Lagz · 6 Jan 2008 at 14:02

Hi

I want to have wireless in my uni room. I am provided with an ethernet socket and 1 ip address.

What I want to do is have:
- A wired connection to my desktop
- Wireless to use laptops without having to unplug the wire or turn on my desktop

Obviously I can only use the 1 IP address on the uni network. Is this possible? If so what do I need?

Thanks

Caged · 6 Jan 2008 at 14:04

A wireless router. WRT54GL should do you nicely.

If you're on a 100 Mbps LAN then pretty much no consumer router will be able to handle the full speed, so you might have to take a hit.

Lagz · 6 Jan 2008 at 14:16

Thanks for the info. I assume the speed hit wont apply to any wired connections?

Caged · 6 Jan 2008 at 14:42

It would because you have to route the packets between the WAN and LAN interface. If you were allowed more than one machine per port then you could use a switch and an access point.

Edit: There are a few consumer routers that can do 100 Mbps+ routing:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_chart/Itemid,189/

They seem pretty expensive though.

crowhorse · 6 Jan 2008 at 14:55

Lagz said:
Thanks for the info. I assume the speed hit wont apply to any wired connections?

Yeah - it will make a hit to the wired connections... most consumer routers can't handle an actual throughput of more than about 60mbps

The Belkin I was using last year in halls could only manage 50mbps

But then belkin are *****!

The only routers I can think of that might be able to handle the troughput would be the ones with built in gigabit ethernet - but they still have to process from WAN to LAN... so it's only an idea and I haven't been able to personally test... I use the Netgear Wireless N router with built in Gigabit at home (forget model number) and certainly the internal wired gigabit connections work a treat - but my external connection is only 16mbit - so can't say with any certainty.

Just look at this page - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_chart/Itemid,189/

Those DLinks have impressive wan->lan speeds! They'll set you back around 100 quid or so... not that much more than the netgear i suggested - which also gets more than 100mbit throughput

Language!