Advice On Wireless Broadband

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:08 am

Sometime between now and Christmas, I intend to change our dial-up to broadband. We are Virgin Media customers and will probably find their 10Mb service adequate.

For several years we have been running two PCs in different rooms, each with a telephone socket. Of course they cannot be online at the same time. We may now have a third, laptop.

Our printer is a standalone, although it is currently used via wires to a PC, and I have not checked whether it can be wireles-networked.

I have never networked the existing two PCs and a wireless network seems the best option with up to three computers in use. Virgin supply a router, leaving us to obtain two dongles, the current standard to meet, I believe, being IEEE 802.11.

This is the Virgin one:

http://accessories.virginmedia.com/webs ... e=SELF5207

Any UK-relevant advice (in plain language, please!) on this would be appreciated.

Harold

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:24 am

I have the Virginmedia wireless router and it works fine for me. Signal strength (and speed) drop off fairly quickly with distance from the router, and that could be an issue in a big house. Small differences in positioning of the receiving PCs also can make quite a big difference so that's worth experimenting with. It may also be worth upgrading your cable modem as well if it's more than a couple of years old. Virginmedia should do this for free.

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 7:00 am

I went on PlusNet broadband a few weeks ago for £5.99p a month Harold, since luckily I am in one of their cheap areas:-

http://www.plus.net/?home=hometop

They supplied me with a Thompson router and two phone filters and I just had to buy one of these Belkin Wireless USB Network Adapters from our local Maplins to plug into my computers USB port.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Belkin-802-11G- ... B0007M69EM

It either just plugs straight into the back of a laptop, like a memory stick, or into it's little conical stand shown having a length of cable so you can place it a bit away from a desktop computer if that is better. My router is plugged in downstairs by the answer phone and the computer upstairs, but I had no problem with the signal.

I believe Belkin do a more powerful one, but as I get nowhere near the 8Mb theoretical download speed being on a copper wire quite a way from the telephone exchange there is no point in paying for a faster service, or a faster USB Wireless Adapter since the phone line is the "bottleneck". As I think Virgin is fiber optics you may need the faster Wireless USB connector to take full use of your increased speed, but I am sure Virgin would advise you.

The router is left switched on all the time, but I always unplug the computer from the mains when not in use so it cannot be hacked into when I am not using it, plus it saves on electricity as even if the computer is in sleep mode it still uses some, but the computer reconnects with the router almost instantly as it boots up again.

(As to modern gadgets being "green" when left in sleep mode, they say that all the TV's left on standby instead of being switched off in the UK as they used to be in the past when not in use, now take the whole output of one power station.)

DaveW

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 7:21 am

Thanks both Daves,

It will be cable and Virgin supply a router. I am getting somewhere with info on dongles, their directionality, etc.

The broadband is now cheaper than dial-up, ignoring the one-off costs. I can also cancel the second phoneline I currently use for (08000) dial-up.

I don't leave computers on overnight or even in the evening, unless I expect an important message or eBay event!

I tend to be the green one in this family. My wife leaves all the kitchen lights on while she does gardening and you can't even see the kitchen from the garden.

Harold

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 7:29 am

Broadband is cheaper now for me. I was paying £14.66p for narrow-band with Tiscali and now am getting broadband for £5.99p.

"I tend to be the green one in this family. My wife leaves all the kitchen lights on while she does gardening and you can't even see the kitchen from the garden."

Get a newer more energy efficient model!

DaveW

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:15 am

There are three different 802.11 protocols you need to think about, see;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

The ones to consider are:-

802.11b
802.11g
802.11n

The first two of these have been around for years and pretty much all wireless hardware will support them. (g) is faster but if I remember correctly (b) has slightly better range. Your router will likely support connections on both standards.

It might be worth thinking about hardware which supports 802.11n if you think you might move large amounts of data between your computers over the wireless connection, as it is a lot faster.

It (n) has been around for quite a while now but the standard has only _just_ been ratified.

However if you use the router provided by whatever ISP you go with then I guess most of this may be irrelevent, as it will likely only support (b) and (g) - that's what my Sky router does. Also the one from Sky is _pants_ - I've had to run a wired network from that wireless router to another wireless router (the one I was using before I moved to Sky broadband) which gives a much better connectivity range...

As Dave says, there's no point running a faster standard if you are only running data from your internet connection, unless you get a super-duper 20mb/s broadband connection then even a (b) wireless connection will keep up.

If your printer cannot be wirelessly shared, you could always leave it connected to one 'main' PC, and share it from there. The downside to that arrangement is that the 'main' PC it's linked to will need to be powered up for you to be able to print from other machines...

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:48 am

lauriek wrote: If your printer cannot be wirelessly shared, you could always leave it connected to one 'main' PC, and share it from there. The downside to that arrangement is that the 'main' PC it's linked to will need to be powered up for you to be able to print from other machines...

Laurie,

Thanks for your comments.

The location of the printer has long been contentious. It is not used much by any of us but is vital for some purposes. Your comments have sparked an idea: If it can operate wirelessly it can go elswhere, where there is space and a power supply.

Harold