Finally getting fibre broadband!!!

[Kin Hell]

Hmmm. PlusNet is part of BT.....

[Harrison]

Indeed they are, but did they supply their own routers?

[Kin Hell]

I expect they would. I'm sure Home Hub 5 is just for BT customers.

Still doesn't excuse the fact the Fibre service should have gone live the day the ADSL service terminated.

[Harrison]

Maybe it did and his mum has it installed somewhere secret!

[Kin Hell]

Maybe Tampon ads are still assigned to Channel 4 only.

[Stephen Coates]

Well, my Mum set up the Plusnet supplied router (which looks like a regular ADSL Modem/Router).

It has wireless, with encryption, probably WPA2, because my WEP card won't connect to it.

So, I have managed to progress from dialup to sitting on the floor in the living room (where my mum's router is), with a Windows 95 laptop and an Ethernet card.

What kind of hardware will I need in order to link her (wireless) downstairs network to my (wired) upstairs network? Presumably I can just do it with some sort of access point? Bearing in mind that I cannot run an Ethernet cable anywhere.

If you are wondering why I don't just offer to set everything up for her and have it work perfectly, its because I don't want the responsibility when her (or someone elses) equipment doesn't work. I'm sick to death of the whole 'lets blame Stephen' thing. Hence I choose to have no involvement here.

- - - Updated - - -

OK, so since it is night time, and no one is awake to complain, I decided to plug my PC in using a long Ethernet cable running downstairs, and here is the speed test:

.

Not bad .

- - - Updated - - -

Another update. I turned off the encryption so I can access the network using an old WaveLAN card, and have used an old Windows 2000 laptop with the WaveLAN card, and an Ethernet card as a makeshift router to get internet access into my wired network.

Using this crude setup, I get the following speed:



Still much better than dialup .

[Puni/Void]

I use a wireless adapter that I plugged into the electrical socket. It was very easy to install and took only a couple of minutes to get working. My AmigaOS 4 machine is hooked up to this device with an ethernet cable, as well as my PC. It is fast and reliable, and not expensive at all. I recommend this solution for you.

[Harrison]

Wireless repeaters work ok. I used one at our rented cottage to get a wifi signal to the other end of the building. But they do tend to drop the connection fairly often. I would instead highly recommend using ethernet power adapters, where you plug one in a wall socket by the router, and another in your room. Then run an ethernet cable from the router to the adapter, and one from the adapter in your room to a switch. Works very well for me. I use one in the living room connected to a switch to connect up my tv, sky box, ps3 and Xbox. Get fairly fast speeds that are not much slower than directly wired ethernet. And not too expensive either. About £30 for a pair of 500mbps ones. Don't get cheaper 300mbps ones.

[Stephen Coates]

Someone on another forum offered me a spare Linksys WRT-54GL pre loaded with DD-WRT, so I will give that a go. I'll probably upgrade to something faster in due course, but this should be more than good enough in the mean time.

[Stephen Coates]

I got the WRT-54G with DD-WRT software earlier this week, and set it up as a wireless client, so it is basically acting as a router between my network and my mother's network.

Here is the internet speed:



Not bad. I guess I might be able to improve it a bit if I position the antennae better.