Wireless Support

carnage1985 · 12-06-2005, 20:08

Firstly sorry if this is in the wrong forum, I did have a look around and this is to with my NTL Broadband connection so I figured we'd go here. Secondly I'm new so be gentle with me.

I have been looking at the NTL wireless bundle for ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£99.99 and I'm confused. I work for an ADSL company so I'm thrown right off with the concept of cable. I currently use the silver flat NTL cable modem. What I want is to setup a wireless network, between my PC running on 98se (the shame) and my laptop running on XP. I would like both to be wireless but am absolutely puzzled on which router to go with. I have a few questions:

i) Do I need to use a router specific to NTL or will any cable modem router work?

ii) How does the router connect with the cable modem? And to the PC, as this is only USB no ehternet, unlike the laptop which has both. The laptop also has a wireless card inside so I'm thinking I wouldn't need to buy a card for this am I right?

iii) What would you recommend, I am considering the NTL - package but to be honest it's ugly, I'm used to working with pretty shiny small routers (not the technical term I'm sure) What makes, models etc . . .

If you could give me any support I'd really appreciate it, like I say I have no clue when it comes to Cable. Cheers in advance.

12-06-2005, 20:20

First off,

to the site. To try to answer your questions,

1) You do not need anything specific to NTL. you need a router with an Ethernet WAN port (NOT an ADSL modem/router with an RJ11 port).

2) The router connects to the cable modem via the ethernet (rj45) WAN port. What I'm not sure about, is how/whether the PC can connect to the router via USB, Someone else may be abe to answer that. If you get a wireless router, you won't need anything extra on the lap-top.

3) I'll leave this to others. I use a Belkin wireless router, but the favourite on here seems to be Linksys.

MovedGoalPosts · 12-06-2005, 20:41

I suspect you can do better than the Actiontec offering.

For a start,you will get better performance with a dedicated wireless PCI card for your PC than an external device connected by USB. Using USB inevitably takes resources from your computer whcih a dedicated card would not need.

Most routers that have wireless capability will also allow up to 4 wired ethernet ports too. If your PC is wired up now, that might still be the best option and cheaper than buying a new wireless card for it. That way the lappy has wireless mobility, the desktop doesnt.

You do not want a combined wireless router & ADSL modem. That would not work.

Linksys seems to be a popular make. Try this for size:
router: http://www.linksys.com/international...oid=6&ipid=533

If you must have a network card for your desktop then you'd want this
http://www.linksys.com/international...oid=6&ipid=521

Note i've shown the speedbooster range. You could downgrade if you are unlikley to do much file sharing between lappy and desktop. Even the slowest 802.11b wireless system would pass data faster than the fastest current ADSL/cable broadbadn offerings

carnage1985 · 14-06-2005, 20:25

thank you both so much, really helpful