Firstly just for your interest James OneTel has recently been taken over by Carphone Warehouse who have been expanding rapidly. and alledgedly plan to spend £45 million over a three year period gaining a foothold in the local loop unbundling section as this offers them the chance to provide its own telephone service and if they want a DSL service also. Further details will be anounced later this year
Most wireless network systems run using the 802.11b standard, which runs at a maximum of 11Mbps. This is comparable with a wired Ethernet LAN and is more than sufficient for a 0.5Mbps broadband connection. How you go about this depends on what equipment you have already and your budget. Starting from scratch, purchasing a combined broadband modem and wireless hub, with wireless network cards for each PC intended to use the network, could add up to as little as £200. This is what you need
A broadband connection2.
One or more PCs
One broadband modem with an Ethernet port3.
An 802.11b Wireless Ethernet Hub4.
An 802.11b Wireless Ethernet Card or Wireless Ethernet USB Adaptor (per computer)
To connect the modem and the wireless hub take an Ethernet patch cord and connect one end to the modem's Ethernet socket, and the other end to the hub in the Ethernet socket labelled either 'Internet' or 'DSL IN'. Then take the ADSL modem cable and connect one end to the modem and the other to the wall socket5. Once this is done, plug in both the modem and hub and switch them on.
As with most new hardware installations, install the drivers for the wireless network card or adaptor before physically connecting them to the computer. Although the modem and wireless hub will no doubt have come with drivers, the drivers will not be required since the hardware set-up will not lead to them being physically connected to any computer. Once the drivers are installed, the wireless cards/adaptors can then be physically installed and the computers restarted.
You then need to configure each computer to recognise the hub
This is where most problems arise if instructions are not followed carefully. Before carrying this out, make a note of the IP Addresses used by both the hub and the modem (these will be found most likely on the CD supplied with the equipment or in the user documentation) as they will be required at various stages of the set-up.
I assume you have Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
Right click on My Network Places and select 'Properties'.
Double click on the wireless network card/adaptor. Select TCP/IP protocol from the menu and then click 'Properties'.
Select the option to 'Use the following IP Address'. In the IP Address box enter a value within the range of the hub, enter 255.255.255.0 for the Subnet Mask and for the Default Gateway enter the hub IP Address.
Repeat the same procedure for all the machines you wish to have access to the Internet, remembering to make sure that each machine has a unique IP Address.
To configuring the modem open up a web browser window and enter the IP Address of the modem (for example: 10.0.0.138). Once you enter the modem configuration screen, select the option labelled 'connection' or similar, and enter the username and password needed to connect to your broadband service provider. Once this has been carried out, click 'save' to store the settings to the modem. You should now be able to connect to the Internet with all the wireless enabled computers.
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