wireless, how to connect?

fatblokexl

i am a Virgin braodband customer and have happily used my desktop on their service. i now have a netbook with wireless capability and want to go wireless.

at christmas i bought my sister in-law a laptop with wireless and discovered i could "piggy back" on someone elses connection in the area. now i have my netbook that connection appears to have been made secure :mad:

Virgin are charging extra to go wireless as i would have to upgrade to a higher level of service to be entitled to a free wireless router or pay for one without the upgrade.

can someone tell me if the following method will work to create my own wireless service.

keep my existing modem for the desktop (this has the feed from Virgin cable in and a yellow cable out to pc).
buy a second hand wireless router.
connect yellow cable out of modem in to wireless router.
connect another yellow cable from router into desktop as still required just now.
netbook search's for wireless signal from router, connection made and away i go.

is this the way it works?

if so how can i make my connection secure?

my netbook has no disc drive so how can i get drivers for router etc/

i have a usb memory stick if this helps.

macman

Depends if you currently have a separate cable modem and wired router or combined? You can't plug a router into a router, you can only have one.
Best way is to get a wireless cable router (not an ADSL wireless router), connect your desktop PC by ethernet cable and your netbook by wireless.
Router doesn't require any drivers installing on your netbook, just use ethernet to make the initial connection to set up the wireless, or set it up on your desktop PC. But if you did need to load anything, copy to a USB flash drive and install using that.
PS: if your are OOC with Virgin, I think you will find that a call saying that you now 'have' to go wireless and may have have to leave them for another ISP if they can't assist you, will normally result in a free or very cheap wireless router.

fatblokexl

Macman,
the only box i have is a cable modem (model: Motorola surfboard). this has an ethernet cable out to PC. no other boxes or gizmo's before or after that.

could you explain more?

i am fairly computer savvy but need more breakdown on your advice.

espresso

macman wrote: »

Depends if you currently have a separate cable modem and wired router or combined? You can't plug a router into a router, you can only have one.

Why do you always complicate things an give incorrect and misleading information?

You can't get a combined cable modem router and yes you can connect a router to a router!

fatblokexl wrote: »

could you explain more?

All that you need is a wireless router suitable for use on cable e.g. any one of these here.

Very easy to set up (plug together) and secure the wireless.

macman

You can just buy a wireless cable router and install that between your cable modem and your PC. Something like:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Netgear-WGR614UK-Wireless-Cable-Router/dp/tech-data/B0000C1WO2/ref=de_a_smtd
To stress, you must buy a cable router not a ADSL router.

fatblokexl

cool, a trip to the store to buy more electronics...my idea of heaven. as for the security aspect (WPA protection) how do i go about applying this?

espresso

fatblokexl wrote: »

cool, a trip to the store to buy more electronics...my idea of heaven. as for the security aspect (WPA protection) how do i go about applying this?

Simply log into the router and enter a long random passphrase e.g. from here into the WPA box. This will then need to be entered into any device that you wish to connect using wireless, so save it to a notepad file to make things easy. i.e. copy & paste.

fatblokexl

would this work? Belkin router
in the more info box it talks about WPA etc and says NO, does this mean i can secure it