Hi ... let's see if you can help me on this. Should be easy I reckon!

Right now, I have this:

One relatively powerful PC hooked up to my DSL modem, which of course
is connected to the internet.

However, I've decided it's getting time to get things wireless. I have
two spanking new laptops which I want to be able to access the net
from anywhere in the house.

However ... I did not set up my internet connection on the home PC
myself, so I am not sure on how to do it, and not sure if I'll be able
to reproduce the settings on a router or something ...

Can anyone advise me what I need to make this work best? Do I need to
put in a router before the internet connection goes to my current PC,
or can I use my current PC as an internet server of some sort to
"spread" the internet to the laptops across the house?

Also ... some equipment tooltips would be handy. Since I'm an absolute
newbie, I need your help =)

Thanks!

Mike

Hi Mike,

It seems like your needs conform to those of a normal home wireless
network. Before you can get started, you need some additional hardware
to make wireless transmission possible:

WIRELESS ROUTER - this will become the "gateway" between the Internet
and all of your computers. Most wireless routers on the market today
are capable of establishing connections to computers both wired or
wireless. To the rest of the internet, only one computer is visible
(and it is actually the router). The rest of the systems on your
network will have internal addresses through which the router will be
able to redirect information. The price of wireless routers has
dropped drastically in the past few months, so you are looking at no
more than $150US (as compared to $400US at this time last year).

As far as the architecture, or how this device is integrated into your
current connection, a simple scheme is used as follows:

1. Plug the DSL Modem directly into the router (rather than your
desktop)
2. Run a network cable to each system, or attach a wireless card (see
below) to each system. Any combination of wired/wireless systems is
fine.
3. Plug in the router power cable

WIRELESS PC CARDS - These are the wireless "links" that communicate
with your wireless router. One wireless card is required for every
wireless computer you want on your network. Once the drivers for this
system have been installed on the wireless system, a connection to the
router should be detected automatically if they are within appropriate
range. The price of wireless cards have also come down in past months,
and you should budget no more than $100US per card. In your case I
would imagine that it makes sense to leave your desktop wired and have
the two laptops connect wirelessly (saves you the cost of a wireless
card).

It is important to note that you should make sure that all of the
hardware you purchase follows the same wireless standard to ensure
that they will interface properly with each other. The common wireless
standard currently dominating the market is 802.11B (or Wi-Fi for
short) - you can be comfortable in knowing that even if you buy
different brands of equipment they should still work with each other.
Also, wireless transmission using this standard is done on a 2.4GHz
frequency, so you *may* experience problems if you have 2.4GHz
cordless phones in your home.

The industry leaders for these products are listed below:

SMC - http://www.smc.com
Linksys - http://www.linksys.com
D-Link - http://www.dlink.com

Since alls routers and cards have their own nuances during setup, I
will refrain from posting hoards of setup information here. If you
still need help once you have purchased all of the right equipment,
you can definitely post another question (you can direct it to me if
you like) regarding specific setup questions.

If you are having problems understanding any of the above information,
please feel free to post a clarification and I will respond promptly.

Cheers!

answerguru-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by adsensor-ga on 14 Dec 2002 15:25 PST

That's sounding like something sensible!

One thing though ... is there a possibility to not have to have to
mess with setting up the internet connection all over again? I really
don't feel like that since I found it to be a major pain in the butt
doing this, and I don't think I'll be able to do so myself.

No way to have my PC as the gateway to the internet, have a router and
a dsl modem attached to it and make this serup interface with my
laptops?

Mike

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Clarification of Answer by answerguru-ga on 14 Dec 2002 16:35 PST

Hello again Mike,

The actual internet connection will not be affected, but since today's
wireless routers all have security and other advanced features you
will need set up your router itself.

PCs cannot act as gateways such as the one you've described unless it
is a single wired connection to one other system. So unfortunately
that idea is not going to work.

As I said, once you've got the hardware you need, feel free to post
another question for me (answerguru-ga) and I'd be happy to help you
set up and configure your equipment.

Thanks for using Google Answers!

answerguru-ga

great, extensive answer