IBB Connecting Tomorrow: What next?

PaddyofNine

I've just signed up for Irish Broadband Breeze.

They're coming to install my connection tomorrow, and I want to set up a WiFi network in the house - three of us have laptops with wireless cards.

Thing is, I don't have a clue what I need to buy! I presume I need a wireless router - anything else? Do they provide the broadband modem? i.e. if I have a router bought, and they install the connection, am I done?

Also, anyone know where I can grab a good cheap router? Komplett is obviously one option - anywhere in the city centre I can walk in and grab a good cheap one?

humaxf1

I have a IBB Breeze connection.

When the installers come out, they will do a signal test first, probably with their own laptop and the cable from the antenna temporarily strewn down from the roof.

The modem/radio unit is attached to the antenna, so all you have in the house is a power supply unit (about the size of a big match box). The ethernet cable form the antenna plugs into the power supply and then a crossover cable goes from the power supply into your computer/router.

I myself am looking for advice on buying a wireless/ethernet router as I have 2 towers and a laptop with 11/54 mbps wireless built-in.

Blaster99

Komplett is not the place to get networking gear. I also have some reservations about their return policies.

You need to get something that has an ethernet WAN port, because you're getting a PoE adapter from IBB that gives you ethernet. I use a Linksys WRT54G, works spot on. Something similar from D-Link or Netgear is fine too. Don't know where to buy one in a shop, but I'd say the Irish online companies will have it to you next day.

PaddyofNine

Blaster99 wrote:

Komplett is not the place to get networking gear. I also have some reservations about their return policies.

You need to get something that has an ethernet WAN port, because you're getting a PoE adapter from IBB that gives you ethernet. I use a Linksys WRT54G, works spot on. Something similar from D-Link or Netgear is fine too. Don't know where to buy one in a shop, but I'd say the Irish online companies will have it to you next day.

Yeah, I like the Linksys WRT54G as well.

So, is it as simple as that? I provide a plug, they come, install whatever they have to, I connect the Linksys, and I'm off? All I need to buy is the Linksys router? Or am I missing something....

Blaster99

Yeah they give you a static IP address, network mask, the IP address of their gateway and DNS servers and you configure that into the router, and you're sorted.

humaxf1

I had a look on www.elara.ie

Check out SKU: ECE878534

Its has 11mbps wireless and 4P ethernet.

What you reckon Blaster...for my Breeze connection.

Dara.

Blaster99

I suppose if you're happy with 11Mbps on your LAN and don't mind using WEP instead of WPA then it's alright. I wouldn't have thought that the saving over a WRT54G would be worth going for that spec, though.

humaxf1

I was thinking of 11mbps being on 2.4 ghz as opposed to 54mbps on 5 ghz.

The IBB antenna operates on 5ghz also, so would there be a chance of interference being on the same band?

Do you happen to know if those Linksys units have detachable antennas? I have a 2.4 ghz MMDS dish on the roof to give me extra range if I could plug into the router.

Dara.

Blaster99

Both b and g use 2.4Ghz. I don't know of any normal end-user equipment that uses 5.7Ghz. That's why that frequency is working quite well for IBB, and the fact that it allows stronger signal as well.

I just tried to remove one of the aerials on my WRT54G and I couldn't. I'm sure with a bit of spirited googling you can find a product that does allow it.

Snowbat

http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/802_2e11g
"Linksys WRT54G: This unit comes with two removeable antennas w/RP-TNC connectors"

MMDS parabolic antennas do work well at 2.4GHz but they are very directional - great for a long distance link but not good for around the house.

OldTitan

humaxf1 wrote:

The IBB antenna operates on 5ghz also, so would there be a chance of interference being on the same band?

Dara.

You are quite safe using any of the home networking equipment with the IBB installation. Chances of interference is remote. IBB have tested both LinkSys and 3Comm with their equipment and both work well with the Breeze installation.

OT

humaxf1

cheers snowbat. I will have to get a different pigtail so with a TNC on the end so.

OR

Choose another router with sma

Blaster99

When I read that thing about removing the aerial I tried again and I still couldn't remove it. It may be removable but it's not coming off easily. A lot of people with WRT54G's on Boards, maybe somebody else has managed to do it?

If you're thinking of doing long-range stuff the WRT54G is not going to cut the mustard. The Linksys WET11 is good for about 10km's though, but you need the V1 which is possibly not available any more as it has been superceded by the inferior V2. That stuff is a science in its own right and this is probably not the thread for it.

puma5k

Blaster99 wrote:

Yeah they give you a static IP address, network mask, the IP address of their gateway and DNS servers and you configure that into the router, and you're sorted.

If you were to connected the BreezeACCSESS unit to a switch/hub and you pc was also connected too
Do you have to have the IP of your PC on the same subnet as the IBB static IP?

I have also applied for IBB Breeze Package and hope to set up a Wireless network in my house

Blaster99

A router comes with NAT, which creates your own IP network behind the externally visible static IP address. This internal IP network is usually 192.168.1.*. You can basically connect any number of machines to the internet connection (even though most NAT routers only support 254 nodes but I'm sure that's enough for your LAN), the router looks after mapping external ports on the router to internal IP addresses/ports on your LAN. A router also supports DHCP so you don't need to set any IP addresses on your LAN, the PC's on the LAN will get them automatically from the router. So it's all plug and play.

A switch or a hub doesn't do NAT, it just lets a number of machines share a LAN. That's not going to work if you want to share an internet connection as all the machines will be externally visible and need to be externally addressable on the internet. You can incidently get multiple static IP's from IBB (or so I'm told, have never tried) but it would be an unusual configuration.

NAT also provides an implicit hardware firewall so you can block all the incoming traffic at one point.

puma5k

Thanks for that Blaster99