Can anyone Translate Wireless from Wired Networking?

[430752]

I have a wired home network with a cable modem, 8 port gigibit router, 8 port gigabit Sswitch (for extra ports, but only needed an extra 4), NAS device (in Raid 0), and several computers hooked all into it, even though I have like 12 wall plate ethernet connections throughout my house. I understand it since I built it myself.

But, I'm moving and new house will be old, and I may not feel like running cat5e (or maybe now cat6) all around the new home. Plus, I've grown tired of wires in the bedroom or the deck. So, I'm considering a wireless setup. But I've never, ever dealt with one, even as a laptop with a wifi card in a hot spot area. And, apparently I've watied too long since I can't quickly find any articles on cnet or smallnetbuilder (formerly Tom's Netoworking) which describe the very basics of wireless setups. Like, what's the "G" standard vs. the "N" standard (better throughput no doubt). Do I need a wireless router, wireless adapters, both? adapters go into a pcmcia card slot? Is the security finally there? Are wireless routers defined by ports the way a wired router is? etc., etc. Can anyone provide a base primer so that when I do read current articles I can understand their language? Like I said, apparently missing the first several generations leaves me now at a disadvantage where I don't have the basis to understand where the reviewers are coming from.

Any help appreciated.

[LCHIEN]

the wireless devices now are quite stable.
most of mine are 802.11g, I think the N are faster but right now they are still "pre-N" releases, the standard is not standardized yet!

The wireless routers have all the features of the broadband routers before usualy with 4 wired ports, also has the capability for usually up to 256 or so wireless devices. The "browser" setup is similar but there will be an additional page/pages for wireless setup. Its not really hard to do, many have a zizard. Just remember to set a wireless encryption because I think the defaults used to be "disabled" which means anyone could get in and take over your network using the well-known default factory passwords of the router.

You'll need cards for each of the wirless computers and the setup for them you will need to set matching encryption and keys. The keys are usually hexadecimal strings, so I put them in a text file on a thumb drive to cut and paste from when setting them up.

its not too hard. Most of your wireless routers come with a quick start fold-out page.
your raid and drives could probably go into a wired port on the router if you plan things right. Put the router centally located and high if you can.

wireless adapters come in PCI, PCMCIA, and USB flavors. I have heard but not sure if the USB take more overhead... USB 2.0 is capable of 200Mb/s+ speeds and is very convenient to install, I keep one around just for "visiting computers".

[poolhound]

As loring say wireless networks are basically the same as wired with theexception that there are no cables.

Setup from a network standpoint is the same. Unless you want to configure fixed IPs both WAN and LAN side will self configure with DHCP. For most home applications g standard eqpt will do just fine. the new 'N' standard essentially increases distance and speed (within the network). You would still be bound to your max outbound internet connection speed when surfing downloading etc.

The biggest difference is in security. Depending on how close you are to any potential interceptors you will need to setup various levels of security. e.g. if you are on a farm in the middle of nowhere I wouldnt worry as there is nobody to intecept your signal, if you lived in an apartment surrounded by dozens of others I would make it as strict as possible. here is a very basic primer, there should be lots to read out there on security.

1. Reset the default password on the router admin.
2. Change the default SSID (your network ID) and the set broadcast to off.
3. CHange your default subnets to something different from the preset ones.
4. Setup MAC Adress filtering. This means only physical units you identify can get access. This does make it slightly harder to add users but means unless there is somebody out the doing "MAC spoofing" they will never get into your network.

Doing the above should make your network invisible to anybody else (other than a very insistent close by hacker). If you want to go to the next level (I would suggest it if you have lots of people around you) you can go to full on encryption using WEP or whatever the highest level of encryption supported by the router you buy.

If you have a lot of devices on your network you should consider a router that allows you to prioritize different types of traffic and even specific IPs or MACs (QoS filters).

You will still want to keep at least one system close to the router with a fixed wired connection so you can use it for configuration.

Have fun.................

[Otter]

Networking basics

I will give this a crack

you will need a a Router with a WAP (wireless access point) if you are happy with the router you have now you just need to add a WAP.

You will need a Wireless Adapter per PC you wish to add to the wireless LAN. They come in several types, USB/PCMCIA/Express Slot.

Standards are everything, 802.11<a/b/g/n> the letters are standards that have to do with range and frequency band. B 2.4Ghz 11Mbitis common but out of production for the most part. G is high bit rate at 2.4Ghz 54Mbit and is the most common but on its way out due to N. N can be High Bitrate at 5 or 2.4Ghz 248Mbit and uses MIMO (G can have MIMO as well). A is an 5Ghz 54Mbit and like the 5Ghz N version has less people on it.

Just make sure you have he same support on the WAP as the adapters and the rest is not that hard. Depending on size and construction of the new place a central location for the wap should service the whole house.

here is a googled glossry of terms
http://www.its.uiowa.edu/tns/data/wirelessbas.htm

Hope this helps

[eccentrictinkerer]

I recently changed my system over to Wireless "N". It was touted as faster and having a stronger signal.

So far I've seen no benefit. So, I'd go with "N" only if you can a good deal. Wireless G stuff is going for really low prices around my town.

To add insult to injury, I recently left Comcast cable internet and joined the Minneapolis city-wide WiFi. Turns out the system only supports "G"!

So far, I'm happy. It's a bit slower, but it costs $19/month rather than the $65/month I used to pay.

[430752]

thanks...

Thanks for the background, hopefully now I can read some stuff out there with meaning.

A WAP is nothing more than a wireless transmitter/receiver that would plug into an existing router to allow one of its ports to be wireless accessible? That might make sense for me with my existing se-up. But, then all traffic on a WAP is squeezed into one port for purposes of router prioritizing?

Adapters are only the dongle that would be inserted into my pc (or other end user accessory) to allow it to talk to the wireless device.

wireless devices can be a full wireless router or a wireless access point attached to a router.

anyone compare speeds of downloads b/w wired and wireless? Wil I notice a difference?

get the same standard (e.g., "G" or "N") as my wireless device (router or adapter).

Security - I really like the notion of MAC address filtering. Can I go one further and have the configuring ability (e.g.: network admin) limited to only a hardwired computer? so I'd have my main computer physically plugged in and then other devices by wireless, and they would not be able to configure the network.

My concern with wireless has always been the hack-ability of it. I explained it to my wife this way: if you wanted to break into a safe, you'd have to physically break into the house first, find the safe, and then crack it without the owners being home and without neighbors seeing since it is located in your house. But with wireless, you're putting the safe as far as 100 feet (or more) outside your house so that some guy in the next house over can try to crack your safe without ever having to enter your home. So a mac address filtering would basically limit it to those "known" devices I tell it to know, unless and until a hacker figures out my mac addresses first? Still not as good, but much better with a double wall between hackign mac addresses and then the network security. Don't knwo if I want to go to encryption levels, tho.

thanks!

[poolhound]

I have added some responses in-line below.

Thanks for the background, hopefully now I can read some stuff out there with meaning.

A WAP is nothing more than a wireless transmitter/receiver that would plug into an existing router to allow one of its ports to be wireless accessible? That might make sense for me with my existing se-up. But, then all traffic on a WAP is squeezed into one port for purposes of router prioritizing?

Essentially true, you mentioned that you are moving and that your new place will have no wired infrastructure so unless you are wedded to your esisting router going this route may not be sensible. Also most wireless devices have the routing functionality anyway

Adapters are only the dongle that would be inserted into my pc (or other end user accessory) to allow it to talk to the wireless device.

Yes. they can be, full cards, PCMCIA or even USB. It may not be possible to just use these adaptors to convert an "end user accessory" it depends on what it is. You may need to buy other hardware to achieve this e.g. print server. You mentioned you had a NAS, not sure if this is home grown from a PC or purchased as a whole, if the latter you would need to find out if they have a wireless interface available.

wireless devices can be a full wireless router or a wireless access point attached to a router.

If you are starting from scratch I would just go with a decent router as the core of your backbone.

anyone compare speeds of downloads b/w wired and wireless? Wil I notice a difference?

As usual that depends on a number of factors. max (according to spec) bandwidth for G is 54Mbps and N is around 250Mbps. There are many things that would slow them down - and usually do, distance, walls etc. For internet access you broadband connection will remain the limiting factor so unless you have a great big fat unlimitless pipe you wont be able to exceed the probable 2-5Mbps. Internally on the network you can go faster. If you have been running GigE then you will notice a difference, if its regular 10/100 probably not.

get the same standard (e.g., "G" or "N") as my wireless device (router or adapter).

Definitley - and if you go with N make sure they are from the same manufacturer across all the adaptors you install.

Security - I really like the notion of MAC address filtering. Can I go one further and have the configuring ability (e.g.: network admin) limited to only a hardwired computer? so I'd have my main computer physically plugged in and then other devices by wireless, and they would not be able to configure the network.

I think that tends to be an option of the device itself - its a good idea though.

My concern with wireless has always been the hack-ability of it. I explained it to my wife this way: if you wanted to break into a safe, you'd have to physically break into the house first, find the safe, and then crack it without the owners being home and without neighbors seeing since it is located in your house. But with wireless, you're putting the safe as far as 100 feet (or more) outside your house so that some guy in the next house over can try to crack your safe without ever having to enter your home. So a mac address filtering would basically limit it to those "known" devices I tell it to know, unless and until a hacker figures out my mac addresses first? Still not as good, but much better with a double wall between hackign mac addresses and then the network security. Don't knwo if I want to go to encryption levels, tho.

As I mentioned before it depends on your proximity to others. I live in a corner house and my nearest neighbour is over 150 ft (at least) from where my router is installed. That plus accounting for the walls etc. in the way they wouldnt get a very good signal (if one at all) from me. Once you turn off the SSID broadcast they wont even know you are there. Hackers can easily get around this but it would mean they have to be within your wireless radius. In my case the only way that would happen is if they sat outside my house in a car. I think I would notice. I dont bother with encryption for the reasons stated but MAC filters can be hacked, encryption much less likely

Once you get installed I would try with and without encryption and see if you get any real performace differences.



thanks!

[JimD]

I do not have a network mainly because our home computer is so old it runs Milenium and setting up a network seems like too much work. I have a wireless G router, that cost less than $50, and I hardwire the old computer to one of the wired ports and the laptops go wireless. It allows us to share the internet connection (DSL). We have a all in one printer that also communicates wireless so we can print too. Still without being interconnected over a network.

I also travel some for business and connect from airports, hotels, etc.. We further have both wired and wirless in the office. I use my laptop as my only computer at work and connect wired when I am in my office but I take it to me in some meetings and then I connect wireless. There is definitely a difference in speed with wireless slower. I think my connections are typically "G". Some wireless connections (like the Kansas City airport) are so slow they are almost useless. I think they are overloaded. At home or in the office the speed difference is noticable but not very objectionable. On a big download, it is most noticable and when I am moving stuff on and off of network servers.

I have the SSM turned off so my network is not visible and I have WEP protection turned on. I can see several of my neighbors modems and lots in our area are around a half acre so the houses are not real close together. I get signals lots of places. You need to turn on the protection but if you do that, I don't think there is anything to worry about.

I do not think you will have any real trouble. I am no expert (as you can probably tell) and I have not had any big trouble. The router came with a setup disk as did the wireless printer.

Jim

[leehljp]

The Speed race.

One thing that I did not see above but could have missed -

If you buy a wireless unit that does "B", "G" and "N" - and IF you have one lap top with "G", (or even a person comes visiting (family or friend) and they have a lap top with a "G" or "B"), the wireless unit will slow down to the slower speed on the network and transmit at that one speed only as long as that slow unit is in the network.

Consumer Wireless units do NOT transmit at multiple speeds simultaneously, as I understand it now. So, Most Wireless units are programmed to automatically go with the slowest speed computer card that has joined the network. This means your "N" carded notebook will run at the same slow speed of the slowest unit on your network. (Does this make sense?)

Most wireless units will cover several speeds i.e. b/g/n. Go with one that has "N" so that you will have the fastest. It will pay off later.

[TheRic]

I'll add a few things.

When you are wireless the speed matters on the distance. A unit rated at 54Mbit will only get that when the unit is near the base. As you get further away the speed will drop.

You can get further away from the base unit with different antennas (if they can be added). Have heard of getting several hundred yards from certain combos.

If you are going to purchase a new wireless router you might want to consider buying one that has: VPN (Virtue Private Network, allows you to attach to your network from outside), Firewall (cuts down on hackers and unwanted guests coming in), Print Server (can print from anywhere to one printer, normally near the base). There might be other options that I can't think of / don't know about at the moment. SO bottom line check your options before you buy.

My current Broadband router has 8 wired ports, 256 wireless ports, VPN, Firewall, unfortunately no print server. I'm thinking I got it for a little over $100.

[leehljp]

I'll add a few things.

My current Broadband router has 8 wired ports, 256 wireless ports, VPN, Firewall, unfortunately no print server. I'm thinking I got it for a little over $100.

I have two printers and two HDs on my current wireless setup. My computer and my wife's computer are backed up wirelessly, each to its own drive. Security is WPA/WPA2 Personal.

I REALLY enjoy having both a laser and a high res photo printer online to print when ever I want from anywhere in the house. I didn't realize the feeling of having a backup until LOML's laptop HD died.

When in the States last month, I talked LOML into going to a Dallas computer store and looking at another computer with a built in camera. I figured she would get a bottom or mid range computer because she is the spend thrift. She got a high end model and gave the 4 year old laptop to our daughter. I transferred everything over to LOML's new computer and reinstalled everything new on the old one with the latest OS updates for our daughter.

TWO days after we returned to Japan, our daughter called and said that the laptop was making noises. I listened to it and the HD was squealing. She is sending it to me and I will replace the HD.

Realizing the closeness that LOML came to losing her data, I went out the next day and purchased the latest wireless unit that allowed for wireless backups and multiple USB printers. I normally back mine up once every 6 weeks, and have not had a HD go south in 22 years of HD use on 19 computers. Now, Mine (and LOML's) back themselves up every couple of hours or so. The "backing up" do not take a noticeable hit on normal internet browsing or normal computer use. Very seamless!

Convenience and computer safety working together!

[430752]

print servers

if the print server function works, that might be worth it all right there. I've never been able to properly share printers wired, but then again I've never spent the money to get a proper network printer. Usually, by sharing, it slows everything down to a crawl (2 minute print times, etc.)

as for vpn and firewall, that was assumed. I am a little worried that it had to be mentioned in the first place. are they selling wireless routers without these features? tsk..tsk.. Then again, I've always spent $100+ on a router, so maybe its not fair to assume all routers have those features.

alright, I'll jump in once I move. Now onto newegg and the sorts to figure out features and prices.

Thanks!

[cwithboat]

You mentioned that you are moving into an older house. Is it old enough to have plaster on the interior walls? Our first house had plaster over a metal lath. Might be an issue, it would make a great Faraday cage. One way to check for signal blockage might be to borrow a 2.4 GHz cordless phone and walk the property doing the "Can you hear me now" thing. Wifi uses 2.4 GHz as well.

[430752]

1920's

Yeah, house I'm buying is early 1920's, plaster on lath. Dunno if there's plaster on wire, but my current late 1920's home has that only where they tiled, like kitchen and bath. Ran the metal grid up the whole wall, not just stopping where the tile stopped (about 4 feet up the wall). Funny thing is, in current home the exterior walls are plaster on horse-hair boards, guess that was their idea of insulation. Home I'm buying is a tudor (well, tudor-revival, actual tudors being a couple hundred years older!). Current home is like a craftsman or 4 square, but not quite either one of those. Still, the Chestnut trim throughout is quite nice, especailly with the old world oak floors throughout, oh and the bird's eye maple closet door paneling, too. (am I making you jealous? good, cuz I'm jealous of plumbing that works, central air conditioning, insulated walls, level floors, more than two outlets per room ).

Anyway, in current home, 2.4ghz mostly works, some dead spots. Good idea to check in new home since first floor exterior is stone, not a facade either. Gotta figure stone with interior plaster on lath walls would be some impediment to the signal.

[Wood_workur]

put the router as high in the house as you can get it. Get some nice extended range antennas, and then you should be set. Just make sure you have it encrypted(I'm partial to 128 bit), and change the admin name/password to get into the router.