wireless or wired dsl router?

[Shinta]

i have a dsl connection and im sitting on the 1st floor of a house.

on the 3rd floor i have 2 family members who are using a 56k connection. i wanna be nice and give them some of my speed without cutting mine back a lot and by letting them have something somewhat faster than 56k.

would it be better to go with a wired or wireless router? don't really wanna drill holes through the ground either. if wires, would have to go around stairs etc.


i noticed on cnet, they said homeportal was a great router.. i know someone who uses homeportal and its their worst nightmare. so i dont really wanna trust their opinion too much :O

any suggestions on which way to go? or which brand/model i should go after?

thanks

[BipolarBill]

SMC Wireless Broadband Router:

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=423942/blsrt=1/ut=18a04c6a7a7d6b10/

The Houston Chronicle had a comparo test recently and it stomped everything else.

[Shinta]

thanks a lot bill

great price on the router but it doesnt say the transfer speeds anywhere :confused:

[BipolarBill]

Click on "Read more". It's 10/100Mbs for the ports and 11Mbs wireless.

[Shinta]

ah yeah i found it earlier today.. i just thought they would have listed it in the specs chart :-p

[rshield]

I installed a NetGear RP114 for $80 a couple of weeks ago to network my laptop and desktop, and it also lets me filter websites to keep the kiddies from going where they're not supposed to. I love it.

I've read that wireless doesn't work so great between floors. I figure when the time is right (802.11 is more secure), I will plug a wireless access point into my wired router, and I won't have to ditch any equipment I've already invested in.

Hope this helps.

R

[PuterTutor]

Security would be my biggest concern right now, people using wireless routers are broadcasting everything to anyone that wants to hear or see. If they can guarantee security, I'd consider it, until then, if you are planning any file/print sharing, I'd stick to the wired router.

[Midknyte]

Wireless routers work more in a ring rather than a sphere. If you have several floors, you should get a wireless access point for each floor.

You can drill just 1 hole and connect a wireless access point to your router. you don't have to get the combo wap/router. Actually, you can do a lot more with just a plain Linksys WAP11 than you can with the combo. I learned this the hard way. :(

You can get 1 wireless access point and a wireless pci card for each desktop. You should get the real wireless pci card with the big antenna rather than the pci card adapter with the pc cards. Only get the pc card type if you have a laptop. You can try the usb adapters too, but I have found that the pci cards with the big antennae work the best. Drill 1 hole to connect your wireless access point and router.

Security is a concern, but most of the wireless routers have encryption capability. This does slow down the connection a bit. You can also change the channel from the default (6 on linksys) from 1 through 11. :D