Router and firewally suggestions

[Necrolezbeast]

I will be getting Cable internet soon so I was looking into wireless/powerline routers to get to 3 computers(soon 4). Comp 1(in basement of 2 story house, also where the modem and router will be...will be using cat5), comp2 (1 floor up and no problems wiring another cat5), comp3 (top floor, can't wire that far because my dad doesn't want me to do that much work...), comp4 (basement, running ftp, cat5). Here is what I was thinking, get one of them Siemens(not sure of the model) that is 802.11b and powerline in 1, which are running $100 for the router and $60 for the NIC, because it is far(2 floors up and 20ft over)) and possibly bad link for the wireless...Is there anything else that I could use, and is this solution good. And as for the firewall questions, I will be gaming quite a bit and also hosting an ftp server and I have never really used a firewall before and wouldn't know where to begin on setting one up...thanks

 

[cmetz]

The best thing to do is to just suck it up and run cat5. It's hardest initially but might be about the same cost as getting some other kind of equipment to get up there (wireless, powerline, HomePNA, etc.). It'll be the best long-term solution.

Many people report trouble with the Siemens Speedstream units, though others have no trouble. I'd go with Linksys or D-Link, those being the dominant vendors in the space right now. If you go with those units, you should have no trouble finding configuration help on the 'net (here or dslreports.com or a Google search).

I'd try to use the same non-Ethernet technology everywhere if you're using one, that is, try all-wireless, or all-powerline, or all HomePNA. The more different kinds of network connections you have to deal with and bridge together, the more headache.

 

[Necrolezbeast]

Yeah, but I probable can't talk my dad into letting me run the wire...and the only wireless will be my sisters computer and she only acceses the internet for e-mail, so speed isn't needed and there will be little to no file tranfers between any of the computers to her. I just have my doubts about wireless making it that far, and I know nothing about powerlines quality.

 

[cmetz]

So get the wireless gear from some retail store with a return policy and just give it a try. Funny thing about wireless is that there's so many things that go into whether or not it works, the best answer most of the time is to just try it out and see.

 

[MonkeyK]

Wiring can be greatly simplified by running the wire up along the plumbing drain stack. No need to cut holes, there is usually a lot of space available. The wire can come out of the access panel and run along wall corners to keep it out of site.

 

[skyking]

If it fails to reach all the way up from the basement:

Move the wireless access point as close to the clients as possible. Get a seperate WAP, if you can, and place it on the middle floor. If you can only run one cable up from the basement, put a cheap switch on the first floor, hooked to that cable. plug the computer there into the switch, and plug the WAP into the switch.