How does this broadband thing work?

Question

Can you please help: I am thinking of getting broadband soon. At present we have dial-up on both computers in house (1 downstairs, 1 upstairs). The phone socket is downstairs. The more up-to-date computer is upstairs (so that's the one I'll use the broadband for) and I would like to leave it there. Is there any way of keeping dial-up on the downstairs computer and having broadband upstairs, even though there's no socket upstairs. THis sounds very confusing, but would like to know if there's a solution? Don't mind getting rid of dial up altogether, just use upstairs computer.

Ta! :-)

Answer 1

depending upon how much you use the internet you will probably find that you are better off with the braodband as you wont get the cost for phone calls.
basically broadband itsself works by passing the computer signal down the phone lines at a different frequency, a filter that you get from your broadband supplier then seperates the voice and the computer signals so that you can use the computer and talk at the same time.
don't worry about not having a socket next to the computer. for under £60 you can get a wireless router, this is a device that connects to your broadband and then shares that single internet boradband connection to all of your computers most of the cheeper ones work within 150 feet radius, plenty for most homes.
if you go with belkin, or lynksys or dlink for the router they all come with very easy to follow step by step wizzards to install them.
this way you only need to pay for one phone line, and your broadband costs montly, probably best to go for a fixed monthly fee broadband most users find they don't use more than about 1GB a month unless you intend downloading mssive amounts of video or music.

Answer 2

You only need a phone socket for broadband if you are using DSL. If you choose cable internet, then you can use a cable socket, and if you choose satellite internet, then you plug into a satellite dish on your roof.

But I assume you are getting DSL. You can keep your computer upstairs one of two ways:
Plug the modem in downstairs with the phone socket, and then run a very long ethernet cable up to your upstairs. This is actually done quite often because it is cheap and fairly easy.
The other way is to buy a wireless router and a wifi adaptor. Plug the router into your modem downstairs, and plug the adaptor into your computer upstairs. It's a little harder to configure, but once you have it set up you will have internet in your whole house, so you can get online with whatever computer has a wifi adaptor.

Answer 3

Ok, I think I can help. No matter what kind of broadband service that you get (DSL or cable) what you'll need to get to connect both computers is a wireless router. (Here's a link to what it looks like http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=203415) What a wireless router does is take the exisiting signal or transmission and re-routes it or splits it between more than one computer. Also you'll need to get a wireless adpater (here's a link to what it looks like http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=272959) You'll need to connect this is to one of the computers. Basically how you it would work is the network cable (the end of it will look like an oversized version of a phone jack) from the modem would go directly into the router and another network cable would go to the computer that would be closest to the router and modem. The wireless adapter would go on the furthest computer away from the modem and router (chances are the downstairs computer. The cool part about it is that you can have multiple connections. For example you had a friend over with a laptop, if they had a wirless card they could connect to the internet. Don't worry, they have features to make it safe from hackers and all that. I hopt that this information was useful

Answer 4

You should not have to pay for both broadband service and dial-up service.

When you buy your broadband connection, a lot of companies will supply a router or a wireless router. This means that you can share your broadband connection with multiple computers.

Find out if you get a wireless router with your broadband ISP, and get a router on your own if your ISP does not supply one. They can be purchased for as cheap as 20 -30 dollars.

Plug your upstairs computer into the router (and have broadband supplied to your upstairs connection)

Buy a wireless card for your downstairs computer. The easiest would be to buy a USB wireless card. You don't have to open up the box to install it.

Answer 5

When you get broadband your cable company will provide you with a "cable modem". You wan to also purchase a router with a wireless "wifi" capability. You cable company may be able to provide this as well. One of the two computers can be directly connected to the router. Put it at the most convenient location. Then you need to get a wireless access adapter for the computer that is not connected to the router (if you can't put the cable modem and router near either computer you can get a wireless adapter for both computers. The USB kind runs about $40.00).

Run the wireless network wizard from the network part of the control panel on your primary computer. This will allow you to make it all work together and share printers.

Answer 6

When you get broadband for the pc, you will be able to use a wireless connection so that can access broadband on both pc's.
When you decide which isp you are going to use ask them about setting up a wireless network.
Or the other option is, go to Pc World and they will give you all the help and info you need.

Answer 7

if you dont have phone jack outlet upstair you can set up a wireless lan downstair while working upstair.

Answer 8

Sorry, dont think thats possible