Newbie wireless home question

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

Hi,
I am told by a (major vendor) salesperson that, of his various brands and
offerings of wireless routers, that there is no equipment that he can
provide to meet my needs, and he carries all of the major brands of wireless
equipment.

I do not have DSL or CABLE internet access. I need to connect computers on
the first and second floor in the house, and that's it! The saleman tells
me that unless there is DSL or CABLE internet access, that there aren't any
wireless routers that will work.

I have a Windows XP machine downstairs, and it has a modem in it, and that's
what connects to the internet. It can serve up DHCP and even pass-through
on ports Ok, and I have on the first floor a hub and a couple of ethernet
connections (100-base T) to machines that get to the internet fine.

What I need to be able to do is connect a couple of computers on the second
floor without wiring. The idea was a wireless router on the second floor
and a wireless NIC in the first floor office machine to take care of it.
But, apparently, I mean, is this true? Is there no hub-like wireless
equipment? I want machines on the second floor to be able to access the XP
machine downstairs in the same networked way.

Thanks very much in advance. If you know of something nice combo of
inexpenisve/easy to setup stuff to do this, suggestions also appreciated!
I'm on a tight budget.

I am very surprised that routers cannot act like hubs in this case, too. I
have an 100 Mbs/s D-Link that I can make act like a stupid hub, and have
done so, but also, I have used it as a router.

- Mark

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

"Mark G. Meyers" <mgmeyers@nosspam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cpcotc$eth1$1@merrimack.dartmouth.edu...
> Hi,
> I have a Windows XP machine downstairs, and it has a modem in it, and
> that's
> what connects to the internet. It can serve up DHCP and even pass-through
> on ports Ok, and I have on the first floor a hub and a couple of ethernet
> connections (100-base T) to machines that get to the internet fine.
>
> What I need to be able to do is connect a couple of computers on the
> second
> floor without wiring. The idea was a wireless router on the second floor
> and a wireless NIC in the first floor office machine to take care of it.
> But, apparently, I mean, is this true? Is there no hub-like wireless
> equipment? I want machines on the second floor to be able to access the
> XP
> machine downstairs in the same networked way.
>

I will take a stab at it. I think you want your router to act as a switch
(better than a hub anyway), rather than as a router. This will allow you to
place all the PCs on the same subnet, allowing them to communicate with each
other. This may be accomplished as follows (at least it can on my wireless
router, a Netgear WGR614):

(1) Since you won't be connecting through the WAN side of the upstairs
router to the Internet, you leave this port unconnected.
(2) Plug all the PCs on the second floor into the LAN ports of the
router.
(3) Turn off DHCP in the router (on the LAN side).
(4) Assign fixed IP addresses to the machines so that they are on the
same subnet; e.g., 192.168.X.Y, where X is the subnet and Y is the IP for a
given machine. For example use 192.168.0.2 for the first PC, and
192.168.0.3 for the second PC. I would not use 192.168.0.1, since that is
probably the gateway address of the router.
If your machines on the first floor are on a different subnet, you can
adjust these numbers accordingly.

Since you have been able to get the machines on the first floor to talk to
each other (and the Internet), there should not be much more to it, but I
have probably left out a few steps on the wireless side that you will need
to figure out.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

"Jim Fox" <NO_foxjh_SPAM@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:x5mdnZfX5IQalCfcRVn-qg@rcn.net...
>
> I will take a stab at it. I think you want your router to act as a switch
> (better than a hub anyway), rather than as a router. This will allow you
to
> place all the PCs on the same subnet, allowing them to communicate with
each
> other. This may be accomplished as follows (at least it can on my
wireless
> router, a Netgear WGR614):
>
> (1) Since you won't be connecting through the WAN side of the upstairs
> router to the Internet, you leave this port unconnected.
> (2) Plug all the PCs on the second floor into the LAN ports of the
> router.
> (3) Turn off DHCP in the router (on the LAN side).
> (4) Assign fixed IP addresses to the machines so that they are on the
> same subnet; e.g., 192.168.X.Y, where X is the subnet and Y is the IP for
a
> given machine. For example use 192.168.0.2 for the first PC, and
> 192.168.0.3 for the second PC. I would not use 192.168.0.1, since that is
> probably the gateway address of the router.
<snip>

Thanks much for your reply! If DHCP in the NetGear can be turned off, then
DHCP requests, I might wonder, would be best to pass through it. Did you
find that you had to establish static IPs?

The whole topic makes me silly with wonder. Aren't there people out there
who just want to use wireless within their subnets, just to avoid the
wiring, where it isn't necessarily performing the function of a router or
gateway?

Thanks again.

- Mark

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

In article <cpd6js$f2ba$1@merrimack.dartmouth.edu>,
Mark G. Meyers <mgmeyers@nosspam.yahoo.com> wrote:
:The whole topic makes me silly with wonder. Aren't there people out there
:who just want to use wireless within their subnets, just to avoid the
:wiring, where it isn't necessarily performing the function of a router or
:gateway?

I've done that with a Linksys BEFS11v4 in conjunction with a Linksys
WET11. The WET11 bridges the wired devices to the wireless AP which
is also serving wireless devices.

If you just needed to join two wired segments together, with no need
for any wireless access, then you could use a pair of WET11. You
could also use a pair of WAP11, but I wouldn't recommend that as
the WAP11 will only talk to other WAP11. There are D-Link equivilents
of these devices.

These days, an increasing number of APs are also willing to act
as wireless bridges.
--
Would you buy a used bit from this man??

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

"Walter Roberson" <roberson@ibd.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca> wrote in message
news:cpdcr6$nbo$1@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca...
> I've done that with a Linksys BEFS11v4 in conjunction with a Linksys
> WET11. The WET11 bridges the wired devices to the wireless AP which
> is also serving wireless devices.
>
> If you just needed to join two wired segments together, with no need
> for any wireless access, then you could use a pair of WET11. You
> could also use a pair of WAP11, but I wouldn't recommend that as
> the WAP11 will only talk to other WAP11. There are D-Link equivilents
> of these devices.
>
> These days, an increasing number of APs are also willing to act
> as wireless bridges.

What is an AP?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

"Mark G. Meyers" <mgmeyers@nosspam.yahoo.com> wrote:
>What is an AP?

Access Point.