I need to get a secure wireless connection for my laptop at home but dont know where to start?

Question

What equipment do I need?
What's the price range?
How do I set everything up if/when I get the equipment needed?

Answer 1

Buy a wireless router. Configure it, including security. It's really that simple.

Answer 2

You just need a wireless router.

Prices range from about $30 up.

They come with good instructions for installation, so just follow those to get it set up.

First connect to it wired and set it up as the router.

Once it is set up:

Change the administrator password on the router.
Make sure the firewall is enabled.
Enable ping blocking.
Change the default router IP address. Only change the third number in the sequence. (I.e. change it from 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.xxx.1 where xxx is a number between 1 and 255)


For the wireless, change the SSID
On your laptop snoop around to see what other wireless networks are there. Check to see which channels they are on. Set your channel to be at least 2 away from the stronger signals.
Enable encryption on the wireless. WEP is O.K. WPA is better. You need to put a pass code or phrase into the router. Then try to connect with your laptop to the wireless network. It will then ask you for the security code, put that in and now you have a secure wireless connection.

Doing the above will make your computers much harder to attack from outside, will give you the best wireless signal and will stop anyone 'borrowing' your wireless. (People using your wireless slows down your download speed. Also if they go anywhere they should not, your ISP will come knocking on your door not theirs!)

Answer 3

First buy a better quality wireless access point. The cheap home grade that the home electronics stores sell for under $100 are best avoided as they are not remarkably secure.

I do not wish to recommend any brand as this would be an endorsement.

The midrange units can do a decent job if you do ALL of the secure steps.

Be sure to activate encryption, use a secure preshare password, and validate to the MAC address of the wireless port of your notebook. Each wireless port has its own MAC address (12 character, often displayed in pairs of characters separated by a colon). If you do not know the MAC of your wireless port, open command prompt (Start - Run type in cmd and press enter). Type in ipconfig /all and press enter. You will see all your ports and their MAC addresses which are called physical addresses here. Note the wireless MAC, not the wired port MAC address. In the wireless access point configuration, enter the MAC address validation section, activate it, and enter the MAC address.

Do the configuration of the wireless using a wired connection. You can use the notebook. When all configuration is done, use the ping in command prompt by pinging the default gateway; you will see a successful ping response for both wired and wireless if you have all configuration done properly.

Finally if you are doing highly confidential work at home you may need a more costly device that costs even more.

If the above is too sophisticated for you it may be wise for you to consult with a reputable firm that does such work. Security failure would be very costly.

Answer 4

You need first to buy a WIFI router , popular brands include Linksys, Netgear , Dlink .

Next you need to hook your wifi router to your cable or dsl line. Follow the instructions on the security tabs of the configuration pages and enable security features such as WEP or WPA.

Finally, go to your laptop (Which I'm assuming has a wireless card) , if not you'll need to buy a wireless (wifi) pcmcia card for your laptop. Finally go to your laptop and use it's wifi setup tool (usually found near the clock in the Windows tasktray) and connect to your network. You'll be asked for a security key, use the same one you setup when you configured the router.. That's it.

good luck

Answer 5

I bought a 3com wireless router (Office Connect ADSL 11g Firewall router).... it costs more or less $ 100/150 ...

You can encrypt your connection or just aplly a MAC address filter, so that just selected MAC addresses can use your LAN.

I use MAC address filtering because in this way the wireless is fastest, the encryption speed down the LAN.

Remember that each Network Card has an unique MAC address in the world....

Answer 6

Try AT&T. They will sell you a router for about $50 after rebate and an adaptor for that price. You might go for DSL 3.0 speed for some $25 per month.

If yer rich, try Comcast.