in message : OK. I am opting for the Router. I figure I might as well go wireless
because
: I have a nice laptop also with xp pro. I guess I will need a card for the
: laptop(wireless) I have been looking at the linksys WRT54G, kind of
: expensive but looks great. Any Suggestions? And thanks again
: Frank L
Hi Frank...
Thanks for responding. I think you will be happy with this path you're
taking. I would like to offer some of my experiences with the SOHO wireless
interconnectivity devices on the market. You will probably hear good and
bad stories from different people which may contradict each other so I will
narrow my focus to shared issues between different brands and issues with
wireless networking.
1. If you buy the cheapest on the market, you get the cheapest product. I
have used Linksys, Netgear, SMC and Belkin. At the business level I
strictly use Cisco.
2. Re: wireless, I found that 802.11b is basically crap. 54G is a lot
better and wireless will improve over time but I encourage you to
investigate wireless technology, specifically spending time researching
installation. Wireless connectivity, as you would use it, would involve at
least one AP (Access Point) and at least one wireless NIC. Your AP should
be installed where it can either get a clear line of site or a path through
a wall that is close to straight through the wall as possible. The greater
degree the angle, the more material and which type of material between the
remote NIC and the AP, the weaker the signal, not to exclude that distance
also comes into play. 54G appears to handle this a lot better while also
providing a better networking experience, not to mention a higher speed over
802.11b.
3. Encryption. You should use encryption and only allow known NICs on your
network. Your wireless range, since it is designed to work through walls,
will not stop at the perimeter of your home. When you can easily make a
directional microwave receiver from a Pringles can and less than $12 worth
of parts, you can be sure people drive around with laptops, daily, trying to
get into networks wherever they can.
4. The SOHO wireless routers generally come with a 4-port switch so you can
also have wired devices. You can hang another switch off each one of those
ports and a multitude of wireless devices. I have a Belkin 54G wireless
router with switches, servers, printers, workstations and wireless devices
connecting and I have no connectivity issues or bottlenecks within my
network. I can walk around with my laptop anywhere in the house and never
lose connectivity or experience a dramatic loss of bandwidth. It is the
only SOHO I have used wirelessly at 54G. The others were 802.11b including
another Belkin router. I had issues with all of them. The Linksys, the
model you referenced, offers quite a bit and you may be very happy with it.
I don't have any direct related experience to offer there. My wireless NICs
are all Cisco. They will most likely run more than the others.
5. Interfaces: The SOHO routers offer web based interfaces and are
generally PnP to get up and running with DHCP enabled. This can cause a
problem if you have DHCP running on a W2K or W2K3 server so you might want
to connect the router and one workstation to a switch, disable the DHCP and
then connect it to your network. If you're running AD, you do not want to
use DHCP from your router, although it is possible. You also do not want it
to provide DNS to the workstations since DNS should be coming from the AD
server, instead of being passed via the router which is pointed to the ISPs
DNS.
HTH...
--
Roland Hall
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