[Nottingham] Wireless Broadband

[Peter Chang]

On Sat, 27 May 2006, Sarah Swindell wrote:

> Hi,
> My neighbour, two terraced houses away, has offered to share her Broadband 
> connection with me.
> I'm planning to buy a wireless router but don't know if it'll work as she 
> uses WinXP (I'm working on getting her to consider linux). I use Mepis and 
> Ubuntu.
> Any idea if I will have problems if the connection is shared over linux and 
> another OS?

No, there shouldn't be any problems. She needs a wireless router attached
to her broadband connection. If she has ADSL, ie broadband over a
telephone line, then she could install what the retailers term a wireless
modem - a combined WiFi access point, ethernet switch and ADSL modem.

> Can anyone recommend a router which will reach next door but one but
> not share it's signal with the whole of Sneinton?

Most work well enough to get a signal through a wall or two to get to next
door. You just need to secure the access point with WPA (or WPA2 or the
old and not very secure WEP) using a pre-shared key to stop any other
computer from using the access point. This is easily configured usually
using a web browser connecting to the router.

On the Linux side, it depends on the wireless support in your distribution
- both for your hardware and the various security systems. I have the
Intel/Pro Wireless 3945 network adaptor on my notebook working with a
D-Link DI-524 wireless router. In Fedora Core 5, NetworkManager together
with wpa_supplicant works most or less satisfactory. I've read Ubuntu has
fairly decent WiFi support.

Hope this helps,
 Peter


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