Help me get the right wireless router or access point

[CBR900RR]

I will be moving to a new house by end of this year, and I need to network/internet-sharing on 3 desktop and 1 laptop.

It is a 2 story house ~ 1000sq ft upstair and 1000 sq ft downstair, land is about 5000sq ft(100X50), my question is will the 802.11b protocol do the job or I need 802.11a?

Also which brand do you guy perfer?(heard bad review/comment about linksys) Current I am running a linksys 4 port router(non-wireless).

Thanks, MAHALO.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Haven't gotten my hands on one of these yet, but it's been winning top awards in magazines writeups comparing wireless units.

http://www.orinocowireless.com/

[jj_in_mood]

Originally posted by CBR900RR
Also which brand do you guy perfer?(heard bad review/comment about linksys) Current I am running a linksys 4 port router(non-wireless).

Thanks, MAHALO.

Large area 802.11b for sure

Netgear MR314 , what i suggest

[CBR900RR]

Originally posted by jj_in_mood


Large area 802.11b for sure

Netgear MR314 , what i suggest

Thanks everybody for the reply

With the netgear MR314 wireless router, MA301 wireless PCI card and MA401 wireless PC card, what kind of networking speed I am looking at?

[jj_in_mood]

Originally posted by CBR900RR


Thanks everybody for the reply

With the netgear MR314 wireless router, MA301 wireless PCI card and MA401 wireless PC card, what kind of networking speed I am looking at?

First of all
MA301 alone will not work, it requires an additional MA401 so that MA401 ( basically built for laptop ) can be sitted into a Desktop, so its MA301 + MA401.
Go for MA311 its a new product launched in the market ( search on google to get to it :: buynetgear.com does not have it still in the stock !!!!!!!! )

And if YOU CAN WAIT there are new products which will support both 802.11a and 802.11b devices ( WAB102 / WAB401 ) sooooooon to be launched from Netgear in coming months .

regarding the setup and the range with mr314 i'll suggest you to go to Netgear.com

Jj

[Old Fart]

No reason to replace everything when you already have a Linksys router. Linksys makes a device you can plug in to your existing router that works quite well. Using it, you would only have to buy the WAP and the wireless cards, not a whole new router setup.

Linksys Wireless add-on bridge

As I said for the size house you stated you have, it should work well. As long as this is not a concrete block structure (inside walls). With a Wood framed house, you'll have no problems, but if the house has concrete or cinderbloc internal walls, ANY Wireless solution is going to have serious issues.

[CBR900RR]

Thanks for the input. For now, I will buy it locally at compUSA, if any thing goes wrong, I can always exchange it for a different brand.

[Old Fart]

Oh, and change your SSID

[norm1101]

Hi,
I currently work as a RF Network Engineer for a company in Everett, Wa. I do alo of RF surveys and installations and I can tell you in order to setup a LAN and share internet services, you will need one 802.11b AP and a wireless PCI NIC card for each of your desktops and a PCMCIA NIC for your laptop. Connect the AP to your cable modem with a null ethernet patch cable. You will need a null serial cable to connect your PC to the AP to configure the unit...IP address, subnet mask, network ID, network name, etc. Use a private subnet scheme, I use 192.168.1.21, 22, 23, 255.255.255.0
If your house if more than one story and has alot of square footage, I would use a 6 or 9DB gain omni antenna or the throughput on the 802.11 (2.4ghz) will decrease from 11mbps down to 5 or even 2mbps. 801.11a (5ghz) has a substanial increase in throughput up to 54mbps but the wavelength is shorter and to maintain this high speed, the distance between the AP and end device must be 20ft. or less.

Even though 802.11b is 11mbps and wired ethernet is 10mbps,
802.11b is slower than wired ethernet due to RF overhead delays.
I measured this with a bandwith monitor while streaming very large files in close proximity from my desktop to my laptop.
So if you go with 801.11a for the speed increase, I would definately use a 9db gain omni antenna and maybe place a second AP in the far corner of your house where the throughput may be much less!
http://networkstuff.hypermart.net