Does internet sharing work the same as a wifi router?

[Arthemius]

My landlord doesn't allow me to use a wifi router because, according to him, it will mess up the entire building's internet. The building is for students and the internet in the building is provided via the university. He says the problems is with them.
I can share my internet (so with an ethernet cable in my laptop) via my laptop, which allows my laptop to emmit a wifi signal. I am now wondering if this works the same as a router, in other words: will this too mess up the internet for the entire building as a router would?

Thanks in advance and have a great day!

 

[USAFRet]

1. Your landlord is pretty much completely wrong.

2. Yes, it works the same way, just not as good as a regular WiFi router or Access Point.
It would output the same sort of 2.4GHz WiFi signal as a router would.

 

[Arthemius]

He told me, year after year, people put up a router, and the internet went down after a few days.
Do you think he is lying? I can't see any reason why as they don't make money off of that internet.

 

[Math Geek]

don't see how a wifi router would mess up a whole building of ethernet anyway. landlord is full of it IMO. they likely just don't want 100 wifi networks fighting over each other in the building. they may get upset if it the network shows up and try to track it down.

but yes the sharing feature would work as a wifi router for other devices though i believe it is very limited in how many can connect at once. should not cause any issues with rest of building.

 

[USAFRet]

He told me, year after year, people put up a router, and the internet went down after a few days.
Do you think he is lying? I can't see any reason why as they don't make money off of that internet.

People put up misconfigured routers. That is what caused the issue.

 

[Arthemius]

So your advice would be: risk it?

 

[USAFRet]

So what happens is...there is a central router somewhere serving up DHCP. Internal IP addresses. 192.168.1.xxx.

Some fool installs his own router, and lets that also serve up DHCP.
Before long, there will be a conflict.

The main router serves up 192.168.1.5
The rogue router also serves up 192.168.1.5

Someone gets kicked off.

 

[Arthemius]

He told me, year after year, people put up a router, and the internet went down after a few days.
Do you think he is lying? I can't see any reason why as they don't make money off of that internet.

People put up misconfigured routers. That is what caused the issue.

The internet building works like this: it comes in and then splits to all rooms. You have to login with your username and code to gain access to the internet. So should I configure a router as an access point/ extender?

 

[USAFRet]

So your advice would be: risk it?

Turn off the DHCP and firewall functions of YOUR router.
Make it an Access Point: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/36406-43-convert-wireless-router-wireless-access-point

 

[Arthemius]

So your advice would be: risk it?

Turn off the DHCP and firewall functions of YOUR router.
Make it an Access Point: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/36406-43-convert-wireless-router-wireless-access-point

So if I do this, there is little to none chance of messing up the entire building's internet?

 

[Arthemius]

I have set up, in my parents home, a router as an access point, following this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3plXzZ1Ckc
So I should be okay if I follow this video?

 

[USAFRet]

He told me, year after year, people put up a router, and the internet went down after a few days.
Do you think he is lying? I can't see any reason why as they don't make money off of that internet.

People put up misconfigured routers. That is what caused the issue.

The internet building works like this: it comes in and then splits to all rooms. You have to login with your username and code to gain access to the internet. So should I configure a router as an access point/ extender?

I have set up, in my parents home, a router as an access point, following this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3plXzZ1Ckc
So I should be okay if I follow this video?

I'm not telling you to "risk it", or that it will be 100% OK.
I'm just laying out why the previous issues probably happened.

Talk to the landlord, and give him the lowdown on the probable issue.
Work with him for a week long trial. At the first instance of your router screwing things up, abandon this course of action.

 

[Arthemius]

He told me, year after year, people put up a router, and the internet went down after a few days.
Do you think he is lying? I can't see any reason why as they don't make money off of that internet.

People put up misconfigured routers. That is what caused the issue.

The internet building works like this: it comes in and then splits to all rooms. You have to login with your username and code to gain access to the internet. So should I configure a router as an access point/ extender?

Okay, but making a router an access point will decrease the chance of messing up the internet, will it not?

I have set up, in my parents home, a router as an access point, following this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3plXzZ1Ckc
So I should be okay if I follow this video?

I'm not telling you to "risk it", or that it will be 100% OK.
I'm just laying out why the previous issues probably happened.

Talk to the landlord, and give him the lowdown on the probable issue.
Work with him for a week long trial. At the first instance of your router screwing things up, abandon this course of action.