ADSL- Cable Router purchasing advice

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › ADSL- Cable Router purchasing advice

SickPuppy

38 posts

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#19826 2-Mar-2008 23:53

Hi everyone, I'm looking at purchasing a wireless router for the flat I've just moved into- problem is that I know nothing about them! lol

What I do know is:

*I will be using it for broadband cable (Telstra) at the moment, but will also want it for ADSL also; I'm assuming I'm keeping it at this stage, and while we're on Telstra now, I might be on Telecom et al in the future;

*It will be used between three people, all with laptops; my flatmates will be using it for e-mail and light surfing; I will be using it for e-mails, a bit more surfing and at some point possibly torrenting, although I would be happy to plug into the router direct for this (many-hundred MB downloads over wireless I imagine would take a while! lol)

Firstly, can anyone recommend what specs or criteria I should be looking for? I realise the above is a bit sparse!

Can anyone recommend any brands and rough pricing I should be looking at? D Link apparently had a few quality issues last year (do they now?) others... I don't know. I went to the Telstra shop in Wellie and someone there recommended a Netgear Rangemax for $130. Looks to be a good price on Pricespy...

Thanks for your help everyone!

PS Moderator, please feel free to move this to the Telstra forum if necessary- since I figured it covered both, I thought the Network one more relevant. Cheers!

SickPuppy

38 posts

Geek

#115628 9-Mar-2008 23:18

Bump- had a look around the forum here and it looks like Linksys is the way to go, and there is a thread recommending them:
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=44&TopicId=18975&page_no=3
Wondering what the difference is between a router and an access point is, assuming the router is an access point and more...

cyril7

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#116262 13-Mar-2008 08:13

Hi SickPuppy, have you got a solution yet or still waiting on advise.

Cyril

SickPuppy

38 posts

Geek

#116983 16-Mar-2008 19:29

Hi Cyril, I'm going for the WRT54GL, but if you can give me a really basic definition/difference between a router and access point, that would be great. Cheers!

tonyhughes

Hawkes Bay
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#116984 16-Mar-2008 19:37

With cable, you will require a router, with an integrated or seperate wireless access point. An access point on its own feeds wireless access in and out of laptops etc, but won't interface properly with the cable router.

cyril7

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#116998 16-Mar-2008 20:48

Technically the differnce is a support for layer2 or layer3 switching.

A wireless router like the WRT consists on 3 basic elements, the core is a ethernet switch that connects between the wire ports, wireless sub assembly and the routing CPU. WiFi is in its essential state a simple wireless extention (or bridge) of a wired connection. A simple 802.3 ethernet switch is the core of a router, it connects all three elements, the wire ports, wifi and routing cpu.

The routing CPU processes all traffic that does not belong within the local ethernet realm out to the WAN, a NAT routing process performs this function, ie a single IP address is presented to the WAN (outside world) and many LAN IP addresses live behind that. This is a router.

A AP is simply a WiFi interface and a layer2 wired switch, this is simply a bridge no routing function at all.

Cyril