Do you have high speed internet?

[NarEkoO]

Charter. the highest one..

[jilbagh]

so... what's the one at schools called?

free high speed blazing fast superman speed internet

[gevo]

so... what's the one at schools called?

the school has its own servers. and most liel is connected to the net via a number of connections. its called a T1 or someting.?? im not sure which is which from T1, T2. and T3.. one is super expesive fiberoptic.. so thts probably no it.. LOL

[jilbagh]

my cable reaches 3.0+mb...never any lag, never below the top DSL speed even at peak times...so i guess im lucky if dsl is supposed to be better than cable.

[Sip]

Cable has much higher theoretical (and actual) bandwidth than DSL but it is shared between people. So it's not immediately clear which one is "better". I went with DSL because I didn't want to get cable TV service and without it, cable internet gets to be pretty expensive. You can't get DSL without regular phone service either but that was only $10 even though I never use it.

I get about 1.5 Mbps down and 384K up for about $40 (+ $10 for landline phone service) with SBC yahoo so I'm pretty happy. It's not as fast as cable but it is very consistent ... i.e. that speed is there any time of day. Where I live, cable internet in the long run would have ended up costing me like $80 a month ($40 for basic cable and $40 for internet).

[Emil]

Thanks for the info.
How exactly does the wireless router work? Do I just put the other computer within a couple of feet of it and it will be connected to the internet?

[!EEK]

Thanks for the info.
How exactly does the wireless router work? Do I just put the other computer within a couple of feet of it and it will be connected to the internet?

It's more than a couple of feet but I think you need to put some sort of receptor in the USB port...at least in Belgium.

I'm not really found of wireless routers/modems they tend to slow down your bandwith and their emiting radius is not that big.

For the latest, you can fix it by putting a a big alluminium cover on it (a food can or something) and it'll make the radius much bigger

[Sip]

Thanks for the info.
How exactly does the wireless router work? Do I just put the other computer within a couple of feet of it and it will be connected to the internet?

There are several wireless standards. Most common ones are 802.11a, b, and g. Some routers are compatible with more than one standard. For example, mine can do both b and g. So whatever you buy, make sure it'll all work together. Also, 2.4Ghz bands (like 11b) will interfere with 2.4G phones (yours and neighbors) ... changing the channel might help but there is usually a lot of traffic on the 2.4Ghz band in crowded neighborhoods...

802.11b by far is the most common. Max rate is about 11Mbps and ranges are a few hundred feet depending on obstacles and obstructions and what not.

You will need the router and a wireless interface for the PCs you are trying to connect. I personally prefer to wire up my desktops to the routers using regular cat5 ethernet cable. My laptops and tabletPC, PDA etc all work on wireless. Some laptops come with wireless interface built in. Otherwise, you can use PCMCIA plug in cards or even USB interfaces.

"Wiring it up for wireless internet" is also not that hard. It's about the same way as wiring up a wired router. For wireless, you assing an ESSID name to your network and pick a channel. This is programmed in the router and all PCs. Then they either get their IP address from the router through DHCP or you can assign your own IP addresses.

Keep in mind that wireless is not safe and anyone can listen in or even connect to your router if they are in the neighborhood. You can enable encryption in the router or do things like filtering by MAC address etc but for now, don't worry about those.

[Emil]

Seaphan,

Whoa, that's alot of info.

This is the modem I get from them: http://www22.verizon.com/ForHomeDSL/...dem_router.asp

[Sip]

Sounds pretty cool ... so you can hook up to 4 wired networked PCs and as many wireless ones as you want. That's an 11g router so most likely it'll work fine with 11b as well but I can't be sure.