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WiFi: Whats the name I'm looking for?
Sharp10r
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I need a wifi device that is smart enough to handle communication with my router on its own, or something where I configure it to connect to my wifi, and then whatever I plug into it, works as if it had a direct connection to the router.
My dad's Router is in the basement, and his direct tv is on the 2nd floor. DirecTV on Demand requires ethernet connection.
Thanks for the help!
My dad's Router is in the basement, and his direct tv is on the 2nd floor. DirecTV on Demand requires ethernet connection.
Thanks for the help!
Sharp10r on
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Your router has 2 interfaces (plugs). One that plugs in to "the internet†and one that plugs in to your network; a "public" interface, and a "private" interface.
Each one of those interfaces has an I.P. address. An I.P. address is kind of like a street address. It's a set of numbers that the network devices use to talk to each other (in a way, they actually translate them in to ARP addresses and other things but don't worry about this part).
In order to talk to the internet, you need an I.P. address from your internet provider. This usually happens automagically (they preconfigure the router to connect) and you rarely need to think about this.
Your private interface also needs an I.P. address. This address is often considered your "gateway" address. If you look at the properties of your network card, you'll see a "default gateway" that points to this...that is, if you plugged your computer directly in to it.
So what you really need to think about here is your private address. Everything that you plug in to a network must have an address before it can talk to other things. (there are other types of addresses...let's just stick with I.P. addresses for now) And everything that is on the same "network†must have the same type of address on what is called a subnet.
Here is what an IP address looks like: 192.168.1.100
Here is what a subnet mask looks like: 255.255.255.0
That subnet mask tells you that you have a range of 254 IP addresses in the 192.168.1 subnet. Ok I don't want to explain subnetting so please just believe this.
So if you plug 10 laptops in to your wireless access point, all 10 of them would need a unique IP address that started with 192.168.1.
So...after all of that blather...what I believe you are saying you need is...
You need a wireless access point that will automatically assign an IP address to anything that connects to it; and that will also configure the gateway (and dns server) so that the network device (laptop, printer, xbox, etc) knows how to get to the internet.
What you need is called a DHCP Server, and almost everything that you can buy at the store for this will run a DHCP server; usually by default. Your "router" probably runs a DHCP server on the "private" interface...unless you received a letter with it saying "you must hard-code the following IP address on your laptop in order to use this..."
Ok so if I haven't lost you yet, here's what you need to do:
1) Acquire a wireless access point
2) Plug the access point in to the private interface on your "router" that your ISP gave you
3) Plug a computer in to your wireless access point using a physical network cable.
4) Read the documentation on your access point that tells you how to set it up (or perhaps just run "the cd" that came with it). It will tell you to change the IP address on your computer to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, and then launch a web browser and go to http://xxx.xxx.xxx.x. Those addresses are most often 192.168.1.100 and 192.168.1.1; or 10.0.0.100 and 10.0.0.1. You can set this manually by going to the start menu, control panel, network connections...right click on "local area connection" and go to properties...scroll the little box down and go to the properties of the TCP/IP connection...set the option to manual, and type in the numbers that were given to you in the manual for the wireless access point.
What you have to do, in essence, is use a hard wire to first connect to the access point (not always a hard wire, some times it will just be wide open and wireless will turn on). Once you get in to the access point, then you can configure the wireless to give out IP addresses to other stuff.
5) So once you are in the management page for your access point, you'll have to figure out how to turn on the DHCP server and give it a block of addresses to use to assign to other stuff that connects to your network.
6) You also must go to the wireless security tools and setup WPA2 (never WEP) and an encryption key so that your wireless network is secure enough that your neighbors won't hop on it for fun.
7) And then once you have it all set up, you unplug the cable, connect wirelessly, and hope you did it right.
Sounds easy right?
Yeah, that's a wonderfully detailed response to a question the OP didn't ask.
OP, what you need is a wireless ethernet bridge. This is a device that has an ethernet port on one end and an antenna on the other. You configure the bridge to access your WiFi network, plug an ethernet cable from the DirecTV into the bridge, and the DirecTV thinks it has a direct wired connection to your router two floors below. An example is the Linksys WET54G.
Note that while you'd think most wireless ethernet routers (like the WRT54G) could do this, they actually can't out of the box. However, many third-party firmwares like DD-WRT actually add the capability. So, if you get a DD-WRT-compatible router and flash it with DD-WRT, you can put it into bridging mode which will turn the router into a bridge.
The only thing I could think of was that whatever speed the bridge was getting (54Mbits max, more likely 30 or so) was not fast enough to stream the video to it. I had to end up running a hardline Cat5 cable to make it work.
Exactly. Even if he only gets 1/4 of the theoretical maximum of 54Mbps on the wireless bridge, that's still over 10Mbps which is more than the majority of people have on their home internet connection.
I have one of these and it works great. The only sticking point I had was that I couldn't figure out how to enter my own encryption key, rather than the bridge randomly generating it's own.
In the end I just reconfigured the router and the two laptops in the house, because it was quicker than trying to get a useful answer out of Linksys support.
Not having to fuck with routing when connecting multiple network segments into one big fat broadcast domain is worth it. For most people it won't matter, but flattening the network and ease of config is why we use em.
add - oh... for home users like this guy? no clue dude. a hacked wrt is more than most will ever need.
It's a good question. Lots of potential answers. Economy of scale, as others have said above - they just sell more routers. The bridges seem to use specialized hardware and software just for bridging, and they do tend to be smaller than routers, so it's not purely a marketing gimmick (e.g., the same hardware just sold with different firmware). There also seem to be a lot of holdover devices from the early days of wireless that just won't die. Consider the bizarre Linksys WAP54G. This looks externally just like a WRT54G, except it only has one Ethernet port on the back. It can do bridging and repeating, which the stock WRT54G can't do, but it doesn't act as a router (it assumes you already have one of those or you're on the public Internet). So, when in access point mode, it basically acts like a WRT54G with DHCP and NAT turned off. In bridging mode it acts like a WET54G and in repeater mode it acts like a WRE54G. It costs more than the WRT54G, but it's actually less useful in some ways and more useful in others (acting as a bridge or repeater). However, with the advent of DD-WRT and OpenWRT you can turn a cheaper WRT54G into a bridge, and with recent builds, a repeater as well. Of course, many people simply don't want to hax0r their routers. However, the feature set and price point of the WAP54G are simply inexplicable at this time.
A note for those intending to use a slow (e.g., 802.11b) bridge on your 802.11g network: it will probably cause you performance problems. I believe (but am not 100% positive) that having B devices on a G network will slow down the network, possibly down to 'B' speeds (e.g., 11mbps) depending on the hardware/firmware in use on the devices.