routers, hubs, and wireless

[pmark]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to get a wireless router. I currently only have a hub. My question is that if I would get a wireless router and I would still want to be able to use network cable connections, can I plug the wireless router into the hub or would I be better off on getting a router to plug the wireless router into?

The reason why I woul like to use the hub is that it is a 8 port one and a 8 port router are kind of pricey.

 

[guaraguao]

what models are you looking at?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A.../sr=2-2/ref=aps_sr_ce_1_2/104-6978858-6806349
<-- looks nice.

It looks like you could just uplink the router to your hub. (uplink == plug into)
(Although that model comes with a built-in 3 port hub, which you probably don't need.)

You pretty much have 2 options, one being a lot easier than the other:

1- you buy a wireless router, with one cat 5 (ethernet) uplink port, so you can plug into the hub.


2- you buy a simple access point (don't know if those are much cheaper, from the looks of it they aren't, so it might not be worth it, unless you feel like getting your hands dirty. . .), plug it into your network, and install linux on an old pentium, and use it as the router.


good luck, let us know how it goes!

 

[pmark]

Does it matter if my hub doesn't have an uplink port? Will I be safe as long as the wireless router has the uplink port?

 

[Eug]

You can get a wireless router with built in 3 or 4 port switch, plus or minus built in print server. The SMC (and D-Link) gets good reviews. The Linksys does not though. They are more expensive than a good simple access point, but on the other hand they are significantly cheaper than a router plus access point. Also, if three ports is enough, you don't even need the hub. If you find you don't have enough jacks in the router, you can put the hub AFTER the router.

The benefit of the integrated solution is that apparently it just functions as a router with all the wireless clients and wired clients essentially treated the same way. Mind you I have the access point plus separate router solution and it works fine - the router sees the wireless clients as any other client since the access point is just acting as a bridge. And I have the added bonus of being able to take the access point to other spots for testing. Actually the main reason I bought my separate access point was because it had (slightly) better reviews (although not quite scientific) in terms of range.

You don't need an uplink port although most have it. If you don't have an uplink port, you just get a $10 crossover cable, although some routers autosense the cabling used.

Here is my setup.

 

[Zach]

So some of these wireless routers (as I'm reading it) do act as a standard DSL/Cable router? can they take an IP via DHCP too? Interesting..

I looked at them a few months ago and thought they didn't like to act in the same way as how we think of the DSL routers, perhaps I was mistaked but it looked to me like it was just an access point deal, without the ability to plug other systems in via std. Ethernet..

 

[Eug]

Yes, these are simply DSL/cable routers which also happen to support wireless. It will act as a DHCP client and will serve up IP addresses via DHCP as well. If you were looking last year, you would have been hard pressed to find any of these though. These are really a new thing - the old ones were mainly plain access points.

In retrospect, it might have been smarter for me to buy one of these and then just sell my old router, instead of using both my router and my access point. However, people say in reviews that the SMC is a slightly slower router than average, and may not have as good range as the best access points. YMMV and it depends on your needs.