WiFi device: What am I looking for?

[OCNewbie]

I just bought a smart phone. I would like to have WiFi access on it while I'm in my apartment. I have a cable modem hooked directly to my PC (no routers involved, etc.). Is there a cheap device that I can plug into one of my PC's USB ports that will act as a WiFi whatchamacallit to allow my smart phone to go through this WiFi device and use my cable modem's internet connection? Or do I have to just buy a wireless/wifi router?

 

[T_Yamamoto]

i think you have a buy a wifi thingy.
or you can try to tether via your USB (phone to comp)

 

[splat_ed]

You might be able to get a wifi dongle for your PC and bridge it with the wired connection. I played with this back on XP but I can't remember the specifics.
I do remember having issues though...

Best method would be either a wireless router or a wireless access point + hub/switch...
Or even check to see if you can get a wireless cable modem from your cable company?

 

[mnewsham]

Does your computer have WIFI? If so you can setup a virtual WIFI network using windows 7, as long as your computer's wifi card supports it. I do it on my laptop all the time for connecting my PS3 to the network (for some reason it doesn't like my router).

It requires some basic command prompt commands and of course a wifi card which supports vWIFI.

If you have that then you should be good to go.

For example to set up a basic network go into the command prompt (select run as admin)
then enter the following

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=WIFI key=Anandtech

that will set up a wifi network with the name of "WIFI" and the password "Anandtech" to get internet onto this network you will then need to go into your network and sharing center and right click on the Wired connection (the one with internet) and then go over to sharing and select your new wifi network as the network to share internet with. This will then allow people connected to this new network to access the internet.

 

[mfenn]

What mnewsham posted will work, but is a bit of a hack. You should really just buy a router. That gets you other benefits as well, such as a firewall to protect the devices on your network instead of having your PC hanging out on the public Internet.

 

[OCNewbie]

I have one of these sitting on my lap - ZyXEL AG-225H. It's supposed to act as a Wireless Access Point. Can this somehow convert my cable modem's connection, through my PC, into WiFi? I can connect this device to my PC via USB.

 

[mfenn]

Theoretically yes. It might come with some software to help, or you can try what mnewsham posted.

 

[OCNewbie]

For example to set up a basic network go into the command prompt (select run as admin)
then enter the following

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=WIFI key=Anandtech

that will set up a wifi network with the name of "WIFI" and the password "Anandtech" to get internet onto this network you will then need to go into your network and sharing center and right click on the Wired connection (the one with internet) and then go over to sharing and select your new wifi network as the network to share internet with. This will then allow people connected to this new network to access the internet.

Thanks for this!

I do have one question... would this be horribly insecure? I live in apartment complex with all sorts of other people around. I don't want anybody else having access to this, or somehow access my computer. Perhaps I should just get a wireless router? Unless it's possible to make this secure with WP2? or whatever the beefier wireless security is.

 

[mnewsham]

Thanks for this!

I do have one question... would this be horribly insecure? I live in apartment complex with all sorts of other people around. I don't want anybody else having access to this, or somehow access my computer. Perhaps I should just get a wireless router? Unless it's possible to make this secure with WP2? or whatever the beefier wireless security is.

The "key" section is your password, you can set up a nice long password if you want, and im fairly sure it is WPA2 (though not 100% sure)

 

[ShaitanTheGreat]

Just buy a router and stick a password on it. All this talk about wireless bridging may work but it's just making an easy job more complicated. This way too if you go out and buy other devices using wifi or have buddies over it will "just work."

 

[Dulanic]

Yeah just get a cheap router. It really is the best option.

 

[OCNewbie]

Yeah, I'm just gonna buy a router. That Zyxel wifi thing I linked earlier apparently only works in access point mode with Windows 2000 or WinXP. I tried using it on a virtual machine, but didn't really know what I was doing, and couldn't get it to work.

Thanks for all the advice!