sharing your internet connection wirelessly - part I

I always laugh at the local commercial out here where they advertise providing you with wireless internet access for 10 extra dollars a month. What a scam. You still have a regular cable modem connection in your house. If you want a wireless shared internet connection, you can do it yourself without paying anything extra to anyone.

With the normal cable modem or DSL installation, a signal runs from outside in to a modem of some sort in your house and then the modem is connected to a computer. When you want to share your internet connection using a wired Ethernet connection, you either pay extra for a router/modem that will let you connect all your computers to the modem, or you install two network cards in your main computer, connect one to the modem and one to an Ethernet hub and then all the computers talk to the hub, which then talks to the main computer.

With wireless sharing, things are set up just a little differently. First of all, you have to realize that for a wireless connection to work, your computers have to be equipped to communicate with a wireless router. Just as a computer needs a network card for an Ethernet connection, a computer needs a wireless network card for a wireless network connection. The best advice here is pay attention to protocol. You will get the best results if all your wireless devices are using the same protocol. Here’s where it gets technical – there are a couple of different “kinds” of wireless equipment. They are designated by numbers – 802.11A, 802.11B and 802.11G. In the real world, they’re referred to by that last letter – A, B and G.

Forget about A –it’s defunct. Unless you have to be able to connect to someone else’s antiquated 802.11A router as well as your own newer router, don’t bother with anything that has A at the end of it. The B type protocol is probably the most prevalent at the moment, because it’s been around long enough to be pervasive. Wireless devices that operate using the 802.11B protocol can send info through the air at 11mbps (megabits per second). That’s pretty darn fast for a home LAN (local area network).

The latest protocols are two flavors of 802.11G – one runs at 54mbps and one runs at 108mbps. (Don’t ask me why the faster speed didn’t warrant a new letter – that’s one of those mysteries like what happened to C, D, E, and F?) One philosophy is that faster is always better. If you agree with that, then look for 802.11G products, or simply G. Some items are now being designated as G54 or G108. Of course, the faster the speed, the more the devices cost.

The not-so-obvious caveat here is that you will be limited to the highest speed of the slowest part. Yeah, that’s the unfortunate law of the entire internet too… if you have a G108 wireless card in your PC but an 802.11B router, you’re not going to be transmitting any faster than the B router can handle, if you can get them to work and play well together in the first place. I always advocate matching speeds. If you have a B router, put in B network cards.

stay tuned for part II