wireless access point/router differences

phlebas

If anyone could clear up a slight confusion I have i'd apraciate it. I was looking at adding an access point to my ethernet switch so I could use a mixed wired/wireless network, and having checked komplett there seem to be wireless routers and a section called AP(access points), the access points being more expensive than a standard wireless router with a built in wired 4 port ethernet switch. Surely I can use the router as an access point by disabling the router facility in it (i've done this on a wired basis with a router/switch), is there a particular reason why i'd need to pay more for an "access point"?

Capt'n Midnight

No

The only thing you'd have to worry about is if you used the DHCP server in the router and it did not allow you to use anything other than the WAN port for default gateway.

Router - Routes traffic between different subnets.
[RANT]If it does NAT then IMHO it aint a router 'cos you can't route back in, and ALL of the SOHO "routers" have NAT and I've been looking to setup a Linux router for a while now and all the articles are about how to setup NA bloody T [/RANT]
If anyone knows of a SOHO router that does NOT do NAT and allows you to choose subnets please let me know.

aaf

I was just about to post the exact same question. So Capt'n Midnight, would I be right is saying that I can use my Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Broadband Router as an AP. All I want to be able to do is have a few PC's networked wirelessly using this router. phlebas, how did you disable the router facility? Why would you do this? Not quite up to speed on networking but learning all the time

phlebas

As far as I know you'd be fine with your wireless router, but obviously second opinions would be great as i'm far from sure myself.

In terms of my purely wired network I disabled dhcp on a spare router with a built in switch so I could use it as a plain switch to allow other pc's access to my network, I disabled it so it would hopefully not interfere with the dhcp on my main router the incoming broadband arrives into and is shared from (dhcp is the facility in the router that assigns the identifying ip (192.168.0.** etc) automaticly when you hook a computer/device upto your network), I just wanted the switch to split the connection, not to interfere with the existing router.

You'd disable the dhcp somewhere in your router settings (it varies depending on make), you get there by typing in the router ip into the browser address bar (usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.0 or similar) you can find it by typing "ipconfig" into a command prompt and looking at "default gateway" on a pc connected to the router, from in there just poke around the settings.

heh apologies if i'm being condescending probably just a result of being on the end of too much advice from people assuming I have a clue what i'm doing