Hi All,

I run a small LAN here at home connected to a Cisco ISDN router. The router has a 4 port hub built in. I have my main development machines and my laptop all connected to this hub via cat5.

However, on occasions I would really like to work downstairs (or even, weather permitting, in the garden) on my laptop. Thought about running cat5 all over the house but can't be arsed and too much grief.

So, I'm looking for a WiFi solution. Basically want a PCMCIA (sp?) card for my laptop and a base station thingy I can just plug into the Cisco hub using cat5.

Running win2k on the laptop with ocasional use of winXP.

So, would be grateful for solutions. Prefer something cheap end of the market but must still do the job without fuss and must be able to be secured. Also, recommends where to get such kit would be good.

TIA

Ian

Avoid the Buffalo kit, we have one in the office, its awful, no range etc...

I use a Lucent Orinocoo at home, wors really well. Check the normal places like Dabs etc for pricing avaliability.

I have a netgear kit, 128 bit encryption, useful range, cost 200 quid for the base station and wireless card IIRC !

A recent group test I read showed the Cisco kit offered the best performance but it was top dollar price wise.

I think it was PC Pro - I might have it at home still, let me have a look tonight Ian.

I like the Netgear stuff...does what it says on the tin.


Be careful with security or you may find that your next door neighbour is using your ISDN line to surf the web :rolleyes:

Ian

The D-Link kits you can get from places such as Microwarehouse are good. In fact one of their kits have 2 PC cards and one Bridge. Works well (in fact am using it now). Have a look on Zdnet as they did a big review. I was going to get NetGear but they reported the Netgear was the slowest.

Speeds more than acceptable and seems to work fine around the house and out to the garden no probs. I think with very clever positioning you could get really good range (ie put it in the loft !!)

As for security - theres enough info about that in the press. You can use WEP (40 bit or 128 bit equiv) and you can restict the Bridge to only allow certain MAC addresses of the WiFi cards. (As all cards have unique MAC obviously) :)

These cards work really well with XP and Win2K and have even got it working on a real old ropey laptop running Win98SE. Next step is to get a Compaq one for my iPaq :>

[Edited by ids - 3/15/2002 9:50:12 PM]

for internal networks, the 3com stuff is adequate, for outside link, i run a customers site office on a 800m link with 10mbps no problem on a zoom air bridge kit......

I have a LinkSys WAP11 Access Point and a various PC cards, Cisco 340, Compaq WL110 and a 3Com card.

All work with no problems around the house and in the garden. The nice thing about the LinkSys AP is that you can attach external attenas if needed to extend your range, it can even operate in a wireless bridge mode if you wanted to connect to remote sites (using an external 2.4Ghz directional attena, running a VPN over it of course for security, not WEP)

The LinkSys WAP11 is about £140 inc VAT and you can pick up WiFi cards quite cheaply £60+

Michael

When we needed a cheap Wireless solution at work we bought Ambicom PCMCIA cards and access point from Peripheral Corner.

If I were buying for myself (I don't have WLAN @ home) I would probably buy Linksys or Netgear under the 'get what you pay for' rule, but FWIW the Ambicom was 802.11b (the important standard) compliant and was much cheaper.

HTH,





Alex

I've put in a lot of netgear kits and not had any problems.

Range/speed are both pretty good plus its one of the cheaper solutions about. I use 3Com Airconnect cards as well (for iPaq pocket PCs) and they work fine with the netgear access point.

It comes out of the box with encryption disabled - make sure you enable it, otherwise anyone can get on your LAN!!

Not only enable the encyption - change/regenerate keys regularly to stop brute force hacks.....

Some organisations ban wifi use due to security issues :)

Richard

I've recently bought myself a laptop and was thinking about a wireless network. Hope someone can answer a few questions for me.

Is there much speed difference between a normal lan and a wifi one?

Whats the cheapest you can realistically setup a wireless one for?

I have one of those alcatel speedtouch adsl usb modems. Can you WiFi with that?

Would I need a router for a wireless lan? I can't make up my mind whether to buy a router or just leave my main pc on all the time. Only problem with that is the cpu fan sounds like a bloody turbine and I'm too scared to change it.

Cheers

CISCO...just purchased 100k worth for the place that I work @...works a treat...or you can try the INTEL WLAN boxes...they are very good also...full range of encryption included....perfection