KingsGambit
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Posted - 2006.07.09 15:38:00 -
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My personal experiences with wireless networking are not very good to say the least. I honestly don't think wireless is good enough as a technology if you want 100% reliable and secure connections as a wired link can. Saying that, it's not bad enough that it's not worth a look if you really cannot run a wire and/or in this case, haven't a choice in the matter :)
I used to have a Dlink 604+ ADSL router/modem and a DSL-810 wireless ethernet bridge. The single 2-3db antenna on it gave very little coverage and I seem cursed with a house whose walls seem to have been designed purely to interfere with wireless networks :) The quoted range on any router is a load of rubbish so take them with a pinch of salt. If you know anyone with some wireless kit and is willing, play about and see how it performs in your home, especially in the locations you plan to access the network wirelessly. It'll give you an idea of where the signals will be strongest or weakest and you can shop around accordingly.
I eventually sold the DLink router and got instead a very expensive Draytek Vigor 2600VG spending a bit extra for two 7db gain antennas for it to boost the signal a bit more. Now I can stream movies and music, SHOUTCast and so on fairly reliably, though for the worst part in the house, I invested in a devolo dLAN thing as mentioned two posts up. I bought the high speed one, but am getting more like about 20Mb/s rather than the 85Mb/s they quote...still as it's effectively wired it's always there and reliable and more than good enough for video.
I've set up a US Robotics router for a cousin and was amazed to find it covered their entire 3 storey home but also their back garden too. As another poster said above, the more security features you use, the less throughput you'll have, but unlike him, I think MAC access control is worthwhile, as is WPA and if you have the option to, you can also hide your SSID. This means that firstly, your network won't show up for the most part for people searching for one (and if it does it'll have no name so they cannot connect). Even if they tried to connect, the access control would prevent them accessing your network, and WPA security (WEP is totally worthless) will encrypt data further preventing anyone from being able to connect to it. Between those three things it'll deter any but the most skilled and determined amateur hackers in your neighbourhood....your casual "drive around and connect to an unsecured network" type will give up right away.
In the first instance obviously, don't bother with security, get everything working without, and then turn on one thing at a time. You need to have something as a minimum otherwise randoms could download illegally or otherwise abuse your network and blame lands at your feet. If you have money to spend, a Draytek Vigor router is a phenomenal piece of kit with quality-of-service, vpn and many other features. If not, linksys is a safe bet with good kit, and lastly there's the devolo dLAN kit which can effectively give you an ethernet port anywhere you have a plug socket, very swish! ;)
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