What are the best products for installing a wireless router?

Question

I am also interested in what are the common problems/issues when setting up a home wireless network. Is it a better idea to just use a wired router?

Answer 1

there are no problems in setting up a wireless router. Linksys or Netgear are good ones. Just look at the back of the box and you should find instructions to set it up.

Answer 2

I would have to admit that LinkSys (owned by Cisco) is the best provider of home networking gear like wireless routers. There are other brands like D-Link, NetGear, etc, but LinkSys certainly is the most user-friendly and is ubiquitous in today's networked home.

The answer to whether one should use wireless really depends on the situation you are in. If you need help, just drop me an e-mail. Generally, however, I would say that wireless is the better choice if you are using multiple laptops sharing one internet connection. Wireless does come with its own set of issues (not problems..issues) which I will describe below.

You'll have to decide how fast you want your network to be. In the not too distant past, 802.11b was the protocol of choice for wireless connectivity. However, in recent years (or months rather) 802.11g has eaten into it's share. The difference between 11b and 11g is that 11b provides access at 11Mbps, while 11g allows speeds of 54Mbps. While it is true that many times your internet connection provided by your ISP is a few megs, you'll have to consider the case of transferring files from one computer within your network to another within the same network. Beware, though, that many hardware vendors (including LinkSys) provide faster speeds using their own proprietary protocols. Such speeds will only work if you standardise the use of their hardware throughout your network. I would recommend trying a router that supports 802.11g as it strikes a good balance of speed with maturity.

Wireless security is a major concern nowadays because of the fact that almost everyone has a wireless PDA or laptop. If you are not careful, you might enable someone to join your network and steal your internet connection ... or worse, hack into your network to steal your files! I generally turn on wireless filtering by MAC (Media Access Control) address. This allows you to allow access to authorized network devices. You would need to know the MAC address of each device that you wish to allow access to though. In Windows 2000 and above, this can be checked by clicking Start > Run, type "cmd" and hit enter. When the command prompt comes up, type "ipconfig /all" and hit enter. You will be presented with a list of settings, one of which will be the MAC address.

Filtering by MAC address does not contain the issue of privacy, however, as more advanced users will still be able to "sniff" out wireless data traffic since wireless signals are essentially broadcast into the air. This is where WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) comes into play. In essence, it encrypts your data transmissions with a key that only your computer and the router know. This is sufficient to thwart most people. The reason I use the term "most" is because it is still crackable. Someone with the resources and time, and the know-how, can still break this. The successor to WEP is WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access). It provides better security and is designed to work with all wireless network interface cards, but not necessarily with first generation wireless access points.

Answer 3

There is no common problem/issues with wirless network, i m using Linksys and its doing well with me. I have 2 lap tops and a pc at home. it safe me from data cables frying around.

Answer 4

I'm pretty basic in all of this. I'd go wireless, if you have the gear already. There doesn't seem to be a need to have the cables holding you down!