Number 245 - October 2003

Wireless Home Network
by Merle Nicholson, Tampa PC Users Group merlenic@tampabay.rr.com
I've added wireless capability to put my notebook wirelessly on my home network. I can use the notebook anywhere inside my house and in my back yard, too. My spouse wants me to test it in the detached garage. I haven't asked why yet.    I've had a home network for several years and been very happy with its features and functions. I've had Roadrunner Internet access for several years. I managed to be on the RR network soon after it was available in Tampa, and I quickly set up my home network with Sygate Internet sharing software, similar to the Windows Internet sharing that is now available. A year or so ago I replaced the Internet sharing with a Linksys Cable/DSL router, and I've been very happy with it, especially for its built-in firewall. It has a four-port switch to handle my network. I do have an older hub attached to provide a couple more ports.    The hardware firewall in the Linksys is wonderful. I was able to remove my software firewall and greatly improve the performance of that PC.    I have four hardwired computers in my home. One, my oldest, just manages my telephone now as its only function. It had served other functions over time, like holding online backups, and it originally did the Sygate Internet access. It's just a P-166. Its function now is to answer and hang up on anyone calling in with an unknown caller ID. It blocks people and businesses that we have identified and announces who is calling for everyone we do know. I love the hang-up part.    Then my wife and I each have our personal computers, and I have a Windows 2000 machine now collecting online backups from all the other machines and running my SQL Server. But we also have a one-year-old notebook that is mostly unconnected. When I want to update Windows or anti-virus signatures or move files from other computers, I set it up on my office workbench where I have a spare network cable to the hub. It came home to me that I needed to improve it when I was watching the Wimbledon tennis matches in the living room, that I had a lot of down time that I could be using productively if only I had my notebook. I have a couple of software projects going on that I'd like to be working on. So wireless is the way to go if I can get it cheaply enough.    I felt that since I don't have an overpowering reason to do this, I needed to do it cheaply. That eliminated the new high-speed G systems. So it had to be the older 801.11b 11Mbps system because I can find them on sale right now. I got a D-Link Cable/DSL router for $40 after rebates and a NetGear for $30 outright, no rebates, both from Office Depot. No other costs except sales taxes.	The Router:    The router I got was not ideal. Remember that I have a Linksys router, and I don't want to disturb it. The ideal device is a Wireless Access Point device. An Access Point is designed to do exactly what I need; add wireless to my network. But guess what they're $100! No way! So I got this wireless router. How I hooked it up:    The new router has a Wan port where you are supposed to cable your DSL or Cable Modem. I've left this empty. It has four switched ports where you can plug in Ethernet cables to hardwire computers directly. I picked one of these ports and cabled it to a similar port on the Linksys router, using a crossover cable. The port I picked on the Linksys is the one I was using for the hub. I disconnected and retired the hub. So I have six ports for computers now, three on each of the routers because the interconnect cable between them uses one each. It doesn't work .. yet:    OK, right off, some of the network isn't working. So I have to fix it. The problem is, I have two competing routers. A router's function is to provide firewall protection and also to be a DHCP. A DHCP assigns an internal IP address to each of your computers, and you can't have two doing this at the same time. Also, both routers have the same fixed IP address. You access the router's setup with any web browser. The only PC working was the one that was hard cabled to the new router. The first thing I did was change the new router's fixed IP address. Then I started disabling stuff in the setup. The most important thing was to disable DHCP. Then each of the computers worked after releasing and renewing each computer's IP address using either Winipcfg (Win 98/ME) or IPConfig (Win/XP and Win/2000). Finally:    It really works well. 11Mbps really is fast enough. Internet access is still very fast. When I think about it, my network started out to be 10Mbps and bumped up to 100Mbps only a year ago when I bought the Linksys. I replaced the PC network cards to 10/100 about the same time. The only problem I have is that, for the moment, I don't know the IP address of the new router, so I can't configure it any further if I wanted to without resetting it. I don't know why this is, but my guess is that it doesn't have one any longer. I accessed the configuration of the Linksys and looked at the DHCP client list. All the computers were there. I don't see any practical disadvantage since the new router has an external reset switch that will set everything to the factory defaults, and I can start over again.
Number 245 - October 2003