Which Wireless bundle to choose?

Ciaran_Dub

Hi guys,

Looking for some advice. I will be setting up a wireless network at home soon so I can surf the net while sitting down stairs and also access the PC upstairs from the laptop. I have a Netopia Broadband modem and was wondering of these three options which is the best. They are all around the same price but from three different manufacteurers.

3Com
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=303770&cks=PRL

LinkSys
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=306185&cks=PRL

SMC
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=308397&cks=PRL

Any experiences of the three products would be great.

Cheers,
Ciaran

b3n

Ciaran

im lookin to set up a similar system for my house, i only have a laptop to have wireless. I'm thinkin of getting
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=303770&cks=SPK

Now setting it up will be a dif kettle of fish all together!

I am routing the Eircom DSL through the router and havin the BUS card for my laptop but how do i configure the router?

cheers

B

Shane O' Malley

If you have Eircom Broadband i believe they are doing a deal for the wireless broadband router/modem at about €45.

I heard it may be free if you are on a trial or if you have been a subscriber for over 9 months.
I use there wireless modem and it is very good and now has a hardware firewall built in.

Worth checking out.

Shane

Ciaran_Dub

b3n, I'm not to sure to be honest have never setup a wireless network before, ask me about progamming and I might be able to answer but hardware I am crap. I know on the back of most ports there is 5 ports 4 LAN and 1 WAN. The modem is connected to the WAN port through an Ethernet cable and then you hardwire the desktop to one of the LAN ports after that I am not sure of settings would need to have one to play around with to see.

Shane, Yes Eircom do have a wireless option but when I looked at it sometime ago there was something about another 12 month contract on top of the existing one. Thats not to say I have a 12 month cotract with Eircom anyway (Long, Long story)

Shane O' Malley

Not sure about the additional 12 month contract. The deal with Eircom is just a new one (Part of their 4th April announcement) but i was lucky enough to get one of someone who did'nt need it any more.

As for a seperate router and modem, i believe they can be difficult to set up in that they both try to act as DCHP servers. Someone sent me a list of directions for connecting a D-Link router to a Netopia modem and i got lost over the number of changes that needed to be made to the Netopia.

I get the impression that unless you want the computers to operate as a true LAN and share the internet connection you are better off with a combined modem and router.

Good luck with it.

Shane

b3n

Yeah dont get me started on Eircom...another long story

When i signed up they had a charge on the wireless modem but now they offer it free to customers signing up for Broadband.

I have ordered my gear off komplett and now i just need to know how to confure the Router....

Ben

Ciaran_Dub

Shane, Was looking this morning on the Eircom website and cant find anything about the router deal. The 12 month extension I was referring to was a good while ago when they first introduced the wireless modem.

What I want ideally is a situation where I have the desktop(file server) upstairs connected to the router and the laptop anywhere else in the house so I can connect to the internet and also connect to the file server. If it is too difficult to get the netopia modem working with a wireless router I might just go for a combined one in the end.

Bn3, Let me know how you get on.

Ciaran

Shane O' Malley

If you need to connect to the file server i think you are probably better off with a seperate router and Modem.

I have seen a few threads regarding how tricky they can be to set up, but that they work very well after that.

I can't find the details from Eircom either but will let you know if i can nail it down.
Shane

dl

Ciaran_Dub wrote:

Hi guys,

Looking for some advice. I will be setting up a wireless network at home soon so I can surf the net while sitting down stairs and also access the PC upstairs from the laptop.

3Com
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=303770&cks=PRL

Any experiences of the three products would be great.

Ciaran

Hi Ciaran

I've been using this 3Com kit from Komplett for about two months now and have had no problems with it. It has the USB Nic instead of the PCMCIA card, which was my choice as I wanted to use it on either laptop or desktop as required.

It is connected thru the Zyxel router/modem issued by Esat, which is set to bridge mode. Setup is easy enough to follow and there is a great signal from the unit all around the house. I currently have my main Pc and my sons XBox wired to the unit and have a laptop along with three other Pc's all with wireless cards and setup to connect to the router whenever they are switched on.

So far I've found this to be an nice bit of kit, does exactly what I needed it to do and good value.

Hope this is of help...!

dl

Ciaran_Dub

Shane, Cheers for that. I might be better of going for one of the above options then.

Dl, Yep that certainly helps a lot always good to hear feed back on products before buying them. For my own needs I think the PCMCIA card would be a better option but I can see why the USB connection was better in your own setup. Might just need a little help from you when I go to set this up.

Thanks all for the help.

Ciaran

dl

Ciaran_Dub wrote:

Dl, Yep that certainly helps a lot always good to hear feed back on products before buying them. Might just need a little help from you when I go to set this up. Ciaran

No Problem....