Question on wireless networking

[VideoTechMan]

I have a question....since i have a desktop PC and a laptop, both in different rooms, i had wanted to know how well wireless networking would work. Pretty soon I will be getting my cable internet service and had wanted to share that connection between both of my computers. Now I know i will have to get a router.....most likely a wireless router. My laptop is in my bedroom and i have my desktop in the livingroom....what i want to know is, will the wireless signal go through the walls to reach my laptop in the bedroom? i know I will have to get wireless cards for both the computer and laptop.....so if its possible to share my broadband connection in this way, would I be able to go wireless in all parts of my house? My house isnt very big, so i figure it would be an viable option instead of having to run miles of CAT-5 cables all over the place. Any thoughts and suggestions would be helpful.

VideoTechMan

[DigiToast]

In my home network, some of my computers use wireless 802.11b. Four computers and one pocket PC are all hooked up and it works very well (esp since a certain someone isn’t allowing me to drill into the living room area like I did to a bedroom). Assuming that you’ll be shooting through walls with very little metal/brick/cement/etc or glass which reflects signals, you shouldn’t have a problem at all.

My current wireless layout has a WAP (wireless access point) in my family room. The farthest I can possibly go away from it in my house is in a room one floor up from the basement and about 150 feet away (total linear distance). Between the room and AP, there is a bathroom in the basement, followed by another room, a wall, one more room, then finally through the floor to a bedroom, and through one more wall to the destination. <- Quite a way to travel for the poor signal =D. Anyhow, I’m able to keep a steady 5.5Mbps signal in this room with 128bit encryption enabled – more than enough to max out my 1.5Mbps DSL line. I believe that there are one or two heating vents and some bathroom tiling between my AP and the farthest room, but it doesn’t seem to degrade my signal too much (as shown by 5.5Mbps+128bit encryption). My kitchen, however, which is only 1 floor up and maybe 30 feet away from the AP gets a very weak signal that drops quite often. This is probably due to me shooting through a fireplace and then through a cabinet filled with metal pots.

Just a few suggestions that I have:
-Unless your desktop is going to be far away from where you’ll be placing your cable modem + router, I would recommend just leaving it wired into your router with some cat5 cabling. It does save you some money to buy other toys with =).
-If you’ll be using a 2.4GHz wireless network (802.11b/g) and have a 2.4GHz cordless phone, try putting your phone where the wireless AP will be and walk around talking to someone. In my case, my phone starts to give a lot of noise and static from signal loss when I’m in the kitchen. This may or may not be a good way to pretest your house for wireless trouble areas, but it still might be worth a try.

Hopefully all that random stuff I typed up is a bit of help to you and perhaps it’ll make sense too. I have quite a problem when it gets late with typing up half-coherent ramblings – just ask anyone I email late at night and they’d be able to tell you about my 10 page email essays =).

[Don2050]

Well digitoast did a good job of covering all the details....I just wanted to add watch for brand when purchasing AP's and Wireless cards. I had poor performance with D-Link AP's and cards, switched my AP to a Linksys and it improved some, got a Toshiba Satellite laptop with integrated 802.11b and it works amazing off my Linksys AP compared to my desktop with the D-Link card still in it.

[Jester700]

Any PC connected with wire will be 10x faster than a 802.11b wireless connection. And the wireless will often dumb down to less than its stated 11Mb/s.

Having said that, for web browsing in the kitchen or bedroom, wireless ROCKS. The most popular PCMCIA card among the wireless geek community seems to be the Orinoco cards for their sensitivity (you get better signal farther). These are rebadged by lots of people - Dell, Cabletron/Enterasys, and others.

[VideoTechMan]

Thanks Toast, i really appreciate your input.....well since i live alone, i can do what i want in my house as far as drilling holes go hehe. I only have a single-story house, and i dont have many metal pans in my kitchen (i dont cook much anyway, hard to cook for just one) so I think it may work well. I may have the desktop in the same room the cable modem will be in so chances are it might work nicely. I'll explore those options later sometime next month once i finally go back to work again (been out of work for the past 6 months). And yes, I am very picky when it comes to brands....i definitely dont buy cheap when it comes to brands...with me being a high quality person I always try to shoot for the best. Thanks guys

VideoTechMan

[DigiToast]

Here's some more info that might be helpful.

As mentioned by Jester700, having a wired 100Mbps line can be 10x faster than 802.11b. This is especially helpful if you're going to be doing any file sharing between the two computers. While small files won't be too much of a problem (you can easily pull 1 gig in 10 minutes or so), transfering lots of data is still better over switched ethernet.

Don2050 also mentioned that you should watch brands you buy.. I completely agree that you should stay far far away from D-Link AP's and cards.
All of the following percentages are done with a SMC 7004AWBR, no encryption, and pulling data off of a switched 100Mbps fileserver:
Lucent Orinoco Gold: been able to max out around 70%, easily the best card for keeping a solid connection. I can stay alive on very faint signals for extended periods of time which is helpful when I'm roaming my university's library.
SMC card (an old one): maxes out around 60%, but is very adept at keeping a signal like the orinoco. This is the first wireless card I used about 3 years ago and it worked wonders for me at the university library.
3Com w/ XJACK: by far the best card I've used for thoroughput. I've been able to get the 3Com running at as high as 90% when about 20-30 feet away from my own AP. This card's ability to keep a connection is less than that of the SMC and Lucent card - I've had trouble keeping a connection at my university library where the Lucent and SMC did not.
D-Link: Absolutely horrible.. 40-50% maxes at 20 feet away from my AP, drops connections often at more than 50 feet.
Belkin Compact Flash: no clue.. it's in a pocket pc that a family member uses but I havn't heard any complaints =)

[VideoTechMan]

Toast, do you or any anyone else know some sites where i can get more info on some of these products? Some of the brands i have heard, and some i havent......are Linksys products good? Thanks a million!

VideoTechMan

[mkelley]

My network (wired and wireless) is totally Linksys, and I think they make terrific products.

I particularly like their support -- this is very important for those who haven't done a lot of networking. I called them a few months ago about an old (3 years) router I was having trouble with and the support guy spent an hour with me on the phone getting my problem worked out (I wanted to put a DMZ up so I could host games but was having problems with my DSL configuration). I mean, this was so totally above and beyond the call of duty I can't even imagine it (he didn't ask for a serial number or anything -- even *I* knew this was a little outside of the router problem, but he kept saying "Hey, we'll get this working."

That kind of support is worth five times what you pay for the product.

[Jester700]

I've had good experience with Linksys, Netgear and especially SMC. I really like the SMC AP and routers. I like the Orinoco cards a lot (mine's a Cabletron rebadged silver), but have been OK with several makes.

The ONLY PCMCIA card that outright died on me (out of 6) was a D-Link. I've had 8 pieces of AP, routing, and switching gear of different brands, and 3 had problems (one a bad jack right out of the box!). ALL were D-Link. Their customer service was friendly, but made me go through the same bullshit "jump thru the hoops" before an RMA was issued. Guess which brand I will never, ever ******* consider again as long as I live no matter HOW cheap they whore out their products.

As for wireless info sites, try:
http://www.seattlewireless.net/
http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/UsefulLinks

[jaeshin]

Since we are talking about wireless network... let me throw in a few questions for those who are experienced.

I just changed to a wireless network (not fully though) from a wired one that I used for three, four years. Well... actually I just changed Linksys Switch to SMC Wireless Router (22mbps). My main computer is connected to it via cat5 cable as well as my notebook which I seldom use. I am planning to buy a wireless PCI adapter for my other computers.

Here is what I've found out so far. By the way, I am trying to get an adapter that works at 22mbps with my SMC Barricade Turbo.

1) D-Link adapter does not connect at 22mbps with SMC. It only does with D-Link brand router.
2) Trendware 11/22Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter should work well with SMC (both SMC and Trendware confirmed it) and it is available for $35.
3) Linksys did not get back to me.
4) USRobotics should work at 22mbps and available for $35.

Question #1. Do I need to use same brand adapter? Would it be better?
Question #2. Does anyone have an experience with USRobotics Wireless PCI adapter?

Thanks!

[donpedro]

Hmm... good question. Do I need all components from same brand ? My current setup is...

Linksys Wireless Access Point router.
PC is connected by cable.
Laptop with Linksys Wireless PCMCIA card.

I have one more PC that I would like to connect wireless.... Does it have to be Linksys card ? Or any brand with wireless PCI card shoudl be fine ?

[txpharoah]

I'd suggest sticking to Linksys, and try to keep all brands the same. Linksys provides better support for you than others, and the mix-n-match will cause less help if you ever need it. I also find Linksys products to work best. I've installed many networks in the years, and the Linksys ones have the least troubles.

[ChrisX]

Has anyone heard of firewire networking? If so, is this better and much faster than the usual ethernet LAN connection or wireless?

[mrtristan]

VideoTechMan - I just set up a network with a Linksys wireless access point. Unlike a router, an access point splits the bandwidth between each device that it's connected to. A wireless access point is really just a wireless hub. If you're only using the connection for high speed internet access, it really won't make a difference, though. A router will deliver full speed to each device. Even so, I went with the 802.11g standard, because that model only costed about 20 bucks more.

Almost all g devices are backwards compatible with b devices, so that shouldn't be a problem. In fact, my wife has an older ibook, which can only run on the b standard. After about two hours of getting pissed off and trying my best not to trash the new toys that I bought, I got it working. It didn't help that her mac is in Japanese and I couldn't read 75% of what was on the screen.

As far as compatability, Linksys seems to be pretty good. A mac running the b standard and a desktop running the g standard are both connected to the same wireless hub with no problems. Both of them are able to use 128bit WEP encryption.

Signal strength is okay on my desktop and great with my wife's laptop. The access point is located about 15 linear feet away from where we both work, separated from the computers by a single redwood wall. Even so, the signal never goes higher than 60% on my computer. I can still connect at 54Mbs, though. My wife's computer usually has a signal strength of about 90%. This leads me to believe that it's the card that's in my computer that isn't reading the signal well.

Also, as txpharoah mentioned, I would also suggest that you stick to one brand. It's not guarantee, but ups the odds that everything will go smoothly. It also helps if you ever do need to call tech support, because company a will tend to blame company b's components when a problem arises.