What do I need?

pauld

My father and brother both have laptops at home. They currently have Eircom broadband with an eircome supplied modem. They currently connect to broadband via the ethernet cable.

They now wish to go wireless.

Am I correct in saying that they need a wireless router/modem to do this. The thing that puzzles me is how do you set the router up if it is not actually physically connected to either laptop.

Do you have to physically connect one of the the laptops first to the eircom modem which is then connected to the wireless router then set up the router configuration or can you connect the wireless router to the eircom modem and then wirelessly set up the router (security etc)

Many thanks

azzeretti

Possibly the best thing to do here is just get yourself an access point. Connect the AP to the LAN interface on the Eircom router and then you will be able to connect to it via an ethernet cable (from the laptop). You will need this connection at first to configure the access point, yes. Once the access point is set up you can remove the ethernet cable from the laptop and then configure the wireless NIC on the two PCs/Laptops.
Or
You could get yourself an new wireless router. You may not need a cable for this because it may come out of the box with no security and DHCP enabled, which would mean you just need to connect to the clients default gateway address to configure. (You may actually be able to do this with an AP also, not sure how the different makes come preconfigured)

pauld

cheers thanks for that - sorry I am not the most clued in person when it comes to this stuff - but what is an access point? - is this different to a wireless router? would a wireless router/modem work but only using the router part of it connected to the eircom modem.

azzeretti

yeah it would but you would have to disable the WAN interface on it(if possible) and make sure the DHCP is OFF, other wise the clients will be using the wrong gateway to get to the internet. Better off leaving the Eircom box doing the DHCP or just change to staic. The reason I said access point is because they are about half the price!

pauld

cheers thanks for that - so it would seem that the access point would be the better option - less to do in terms of setting up and disabling etc and it is half the price!!

many thanks for your help.