Whats the difference between a Wireless access point and a wireless router.

Hellrazer

Moved my pc to a conservatory and now I have to run one of those phone extension cables to the pc everytime I want to access the internet.Bit of a pain cos I cant leave downloads on overnight anymore.
I have eircom broadband with the netopia modem.

Now my question is this---What do I need if all I want is wireless access to the internet as opposed to a network?


Can I use a wireless access point for this.And does it work like this:

phone cable from wall into Eircoms modem

---

ethernet connection from the modem into the router and wireless network card in PC to receive signal.

Is it that simple?And whats the difference between a Router and a wireless accesspoint?
Richie

oscarBravo

Not familiar with the Netopia, but it should come down to this: if your PC has an RFC1918 address (192.168.y.z or 10.x.y.z) then you don't need a router. Plug an access point into the Netopia, stick a wireless card in the PC, and you're away. Assuming you can pick up the signal, of course.

Hellrazer

Just bought a wireless access point--Anyone know anything about network security--dont want the neighbours sapping up my cap as its low enough as it is?
Richie

tomk

It's very possible your neighbours won't know you have wireless, but if you suspect that they or anyone else might steal your bandwidth, enable whatever security measures your AP has. These will probably be:

1. WEP - Wireless Equivalency Protocol. Data Encryption. Not particularly effective if the attacker is motivated and has some time, but godd enough to put off the casual surfer/chancer.
2. MAC Access Control - restricts access to your AP to specified MAC address(es) i.e. your PC's WiFi card, maybe your friend's laptop, etc. Again, this can also be cracked given even more time and determination, but so can any protection, for that matter.

If you're lucky, your AP might have WPA (WiFi Protected Access) instead of WEP - this would be a lot more secure.

Hellrazer

Ok just got everything up and running.

Few problems though.The wireless point can only be accessed when the pc has a STATIC ip address in the same range of the hardware.In the manual the point is say 192.168.0.50 and says to set your pc as 192.168.0.51 or thereabouts.Now when I do this I lose my net connection eventhough I can get into the config of the wireless point but cant access the config of my router(netopia cayman).Anyone throw some light on this?

Also the pci card has a setting for encryption with "keys"I assume these must be the same as the wireless point???
Ive no encryption set up at the minute and the tech support line has a 2 hour wait at the moment so again any help appreciated.

tomk

Post up a few details:

AP make & model
Private address range used by Netopia
Private address range used by AP (if different)

Re encryption, you are correct - the same key(s) must be used on both sides of the connection.

Hellrazer

Make and model is a D-LINK GA2500AP.Card is a dlink ga250+.

IP Range for AP-is 192.168.0.50 with asubnet of 255.255.255.0.So I give the pc a static address of 192.168.0.51 which is what the manual says.

Netopia config address is 192.168.1.254.

Does this help??

As I said if I set a static ip to configure the AP then I cant get into the config for the Netopia or access the net.

If I leave the settings as dynamic I can access the net,the netopia but not the config for the AP.

Im not too well up on networking and not really too concerned but I would like some sort of encryption turned on.

By the way what is a key??Is it a password of my own choosing?
Thanks
Richie

oscarBravo

Change the AP to have an IP of 192.168.1.50, and the PC to have 192.168.1.51. The AP isn't a router, so it can't move packets from one subnet to another.

Make sure you change the AP's address first, then the PC's.

Hellrazer

oscarBravo wrote:

Change the AP to have an IP of 192.168.1.50, and the PC to have 192.168.1.51. The AP isn't a router, so it can't move packets from one subnet to another.

Make sure you change the AP's address first, then the PC's.

Now Im really confused.How do I change the AP ip address.It"out of the box" set at the above.

If Im reading you correctly the AP must be in the same range as the Netopia. ie any ip with the address of 192.168.1.*whatever* will do?Yep?

So my solution is this:
1.Set pc ip to 192.168.0.52 solely for the purpose of accessing the AP setup.
2.Go in to AP config and set default IP of the AP to 192.168.1.50 instead of 192.168.0.50 as it is at the minute.
3.Go back into the PC ip and set it to 192.168.1.51.

Problem solved?
Richie.

oscarBravo

That about does it. Everything has to be in 192.168.1.*, and all have to be different. I've no idea how you change the IP address of the AP, but it has to be somewhere in the config.

Hellrazer

oscarBravo wrote:

That about does it. Everything has to be in 192.168.1.*, and all have to be different. I've no idea how you change the IP address of the AP, but it has to be somewhere in the config.

Well fair play to you Oscar.Did all the above ie set the IP of the AP to 192.168.1.50(was 192.168.0.50) and set the PC Ip address to 192.168.1.51 and everything worked perfectly.Thanks again.

Any now for another small problem.
I use the BB mainly for gaming but Ive noticed that my pings are all over the place with the wireless but not if I connect directly to the router with a phone cable.

Theres obviously a few settings in there that need "tweaking".
One of the settings is "preamble"--long or short--Which is better for gaming?
The other one is "beacon" timing which was set at 100ms.I lowered this to 20ms and that seems to have made things better.
Theres a load more in there but which ones are most important for ping times.
Richie

oscarBravo

Hellrazer wrote:

Well fair play to you Oscar.Did all the above ie set the IP of the AP to 192.168.1.50(was 192.168.0.50) and set the PC Ip address to 192.168.1.51 and everything worked perfectly.Thanks again.

No prob.

Hellrazer wrote:

Any now for another small problem.
I use the BB mainly for gaming but Ive noticed that my pings are all over the place with the wireless but not if I connect directly to the router with a phone cable.

Theres obviously a few settings in there that need "tweaking".
One of the settings is "preamble"--long or short--Which is better for gaming?
The other one is "beacon" timing which was set at 100ms.I lowered this to 20ms and that seems to have made things better.
Theres a load more in there but which ones are most important for ping times.

I don't really know, tbh. I'd be inclined to fooster with the antenna positioning. Move the AP around a bit, and watch what happens. If it has two antennae, position them in various different ways. Wireless is funny like that.