Here’s the deal:
I have 2 PCs, laptop, PS3 and 2 phones that can access internet via wireless in my house. Well, they won’t all be on internet at same time(ever), maybe 3 or 4.
I have wimax connection, it’s kinda like wireless, there’s cable from antenna outside coming to little router thing and then another to my ethernet spot.
I want those PCs to access internet but I don’t know if I should get router or ap. Atm I have wireless card(s) in all and I can only have 2 online at same time(connect one on main pc and get internet).
I want to be able to connect them all, aka be able to have 4 devices at same time, not have speed problems through house, I don’t want walls ( concrete, not wood) to ruin my connection, it’s not big house thought. I want to lock connection so people from outside can’t get in.
And last I don’t want speed to get ruined, maybe option to control who gets what speed( not must, I just don’t want speed to go down only because it’s wireless instead of wired now…).
Help please :)
Another thing, point of me getting wireless is because devices aren’t in same room.
Any wireless signal is going to be impacted by obstacles, whether it be walls or distance. If that’s an absolute requirement then you’ll need to wire your house, which could end up being fairly expensive.
If you go wireless you can password protect your connection, though it won’t guaranteed someone with enough motivation won’t be able to access your network. Again, the only trtrulycured system is a wired solution.
My recommendation; go with a wireless router. Put the router in the area where most of your devices are located and run cables to those. Most routers will allow up to four-wired connections.
Turn on whatever security the router has and use wireless for the rest.
You’ll have to monitor the number of devices running at anyone time, unless you can find load balancing software, which probably isn’t practical for a home network.
What you need is an access point. It basically just connects a wired ethernet network with a wireless one. Make sure to configure security correctly!
If you have a wireless router or can find one cheaply, you can use it as an access point. The method varies, but the following ‘trick’ works with most routers:
1) Configure the wireless and security the normal way. Make sure to *DISABLE* DHCP (or ‘automatic network address assignment’) in the router.
2) Leave the ‘Internet’ ethernet port on the router disconnected. Leave any cable or DSL ports disconnected to.
3) Connect one of the ‘LAN’ ports on the router to the wired network.
4) You can use the other ‘LAN’ ports as additional wired ports if you want.
This works because wireless routers have a built-in access point which is bridged to their LAN ports. So it ‘just works’. (Theoretically, routers should be more expensive than access points, because they’re an access point and a wired router. But high volumes has brought the price of wireless routers down to nearly zero. My last wireless router was $20 new.)
It’s probably easier to get an access point because you will be using it exactly the way it’s designed to be used and can follow its normal directions.
You can also use the router in its intended way. Set up wireless security and connect its ‘Internet’ port to your wired network. The only downside is that this will create a configuration called ‘double NAT’. This could potentially cause problems but usually doesn’t. Computers on the wireless won’t be able to talk to computers on the wired network, so you can’t use it as a LAN. (This matters if you want to use Windows networking to share files and printers or you want to play LAN games. Internet games should work fine.)
XBOXes don’t like being behind double NAT. It usually works, but some games may disable some network features.