What do I need to go wireless?

[neilmac]

I do all my work (& play) on a Toshiba Satellite laptop and would like to use it anywhere in the house instead of having to be near a telephone point.

Anyone care to explain what (in layman's terms) I need to buy to facilitate this?

Presumably there will be a box of tricks and a plug-in card, do they have to be the same make? do I buy them as a pair? or have I really not got any idea what I'm talking about?

Cheers

Neil

[ginettag27]

I've also been looking at the same..

Have a look on : www.adslguide.org.uk for info.

I think www.dsl-warehouse.co.uk have the best value bundle sets..

You'll need at least a Modem-Router-WirelessAccessPoint (all 3 in one) together with a PCMCIA wireless card.

They've got some bundles for about 80 quid inc. VAT(Modem and PCMCIA card!). US Robotics and Netgear

hth

[squirrelz]

Neil, have you got ADSL, Cable broadband or ordinary dial up? Makes a bit of a difference, as its generally a different box of tricks for each one.

[neilmac]

Thanks for info....

Still on good old dial up I'm afraid but hoping local exchange will go Broadband soon?

I'm quite happy to scour the pages of Ebay for the gear but I do need to know what I will need.

Cheers

Neil

[squirrelz]

Right, for dial up you need something like an Orinoco RG-1000 residential gateway (also rebadged as a Compaq WL310). These are long since discontinued, and I've not seen anything like them for a while.

However, you won't be able to use it for ADSL, if you go for broadband later. You would have to buy a new ADSL modem/router - potentially re-using the wireless bit of the old device.

Some of the older Apple Airports may work for you, but I don't know that much about them.

[neilmac]

squirrelz said:

Right, for dial up you need something like an Orinoco RG-1000 residential gateway (also rebadged as a Compaq WL310). These are long since discontinued, and I've not seen anything like them for a while. However, you won't be able to use it for ADSL, if you go for broadband later. You would have to buy a new ADSL modem/router - potentially re-using the wireless bit of the old device. Some of the older Apple Airports may work for you, but I don't know that much about them.

Thanks Rich,

Don't know how far off broadband is from coming to my rural exchange so may look out for one of the above in the meantime, presumably I need a matching plug-in card still to fit my laptop?

Nice shine on your Chim on your profile BTW...

Cheers

Neil

[squirrelz]

You can check here for the current status of your local exchange.

Yes you would need a wireless card for your laptop (if it doesn't already have wifi built in). Depends on the spec of your laptop as to what card/dongle you need. e.g. Older models don't necessarily support PC Card devices.

[neilmac]

squirrelz said:

Right, for dial up you need something like an Orinoco RG-1000 residential gateway (also rebadged as a Compaq WL310). These are long since discontinued, and I've not seen anything like them for a while. However, you won't be able to use it for ADSL, if you go for broadband later. You would have to buy a new ADSL modem/router - potentially re-using the wireless bit of the old device. Some of the older Apple Airports may work for you, but I don't know that much about them.

Thanks for your advice, I've been able to get a Compaq WL310 Gateway and WL110 Card and had some fun installing them!!

They communicate with each other but I can't get the WL310 to recognise its own network name when using its setup utility in order to put in my ISP details so that it will connect to the internet - if that all makes sense?

I've made sure TCP/IP is installed and DHCP enabled and it should be able to obtain incoming IP address automatically, but still no joy....

Any ideas of wher and what to check next?

Neil

[neilmac]

All sorted now - thanks again for advice/recommendations.

Bonus is .... Compaq WL310 is useable with Broadband too .... and local exchange has upgraded! So order is in with Virgin as Tesco (existing ISP) still say its not available.

Cheers

Neil

[squirrelz]

Glad to be able to help, and that you got it all working.
Yes, you can use the WL310 with broadband, but what I meant was that it doesnt support it directly and you need an ADSL modem/router as well.