Wireless Internet Router for £35 delivered- Can you beat it?

retrograze

Thought it might be worth mentioning fon (https://www.fon.com).

They provide wireless "la fonera" routers that connect to your existing (wired or wireless) router and establish a secure (WPA) wireless network as well as a completely isolated open-access network, open to all fon users (aka "foneros").

If you get an existing fon member to recommend you as a new fonero, you get the router absolutely free! Got mine a few days ago, and it works brilliantly.

Fon got taken over by Skype some time ago, I think. That's how they can afford to give away free routers.

mrsstoozer

Thought I'd let you know, I just bought the buffalo for £29. Fab - thanks for the tip!

MadCowMan

It probably also worth mentioning that 802.11g provides speeds of up to 54mbps - there are quite a few factors that can reduce the speed and quality of a wireless link. I'd always keep an ethernet cable handy for those days ( and they will come ) when wireless just doesn't wanna play !!

fruitbat_2

I've got a wireless enabled laptop, and we've currently got wired broadband through the phone (pipex) but are keen to go wire free to avoid tripping over the darned things - we wouldn't want a network as such, just one or possibly two laptops connected to broadband, but not to each other, and not at the same time.

I'm quite confused about whether we need just a modem/router or any of these wireless adapters/ USB wireless connectors I keep seeing for sale alongside the router/modem - can anyone help?

Thanks

FB

MadCowMan

If you laptop has a built in wireless LAN card than you'll be able to connect it to an access point or router.

What box have you got from pipex ?

If its just one that connects directly to the laptops USB port , then you'll need to get a Wireless ADSL router ( as mentioned in the article )

If you dont want the laptops to 'see' each other then you'll have to make use of the windows firewall.

espresso

fruitbat wrote:

I've got a wireless enabled laptop.........

I'm quite confused about whether we need just a modem/router or any of these wireless adapters/ USB wireless connectors I keep seeing for sale alongside the router/modem - can anyone help?

Thanks

FB

Read the links given in post #7 where it's all explained. Start a new thread if you have any specific questions.

MSE_Martin

thanks for bits and bytes - ive amended

pintpot_3

MSE_Martin wrote:

What's the deal?

If you have broadband at home, it's best to get an 802.11.g model, which allows transfer speeds of 54 mbps (megabytes per second).

It aint necessarily so. If you only use the wireless modem for broadband then there is no difference in using a 802.11b or 802.11g modem.

802.11b standard is rated at 11mbs. 802.11g is 54mbs.

However, your broadband speed is only up to 8mbs so you will not see any difference in surfing speed if you use 802.11b or 802.11g.

You will only see a difference if you send large files from one PC on your network to another on your network. If that is rare just get a cheaper 802.11b for now.

espresso

pintpot wrote:

It aint necessarily so. If you only use the wireless modem for broadband then there is no difference in using a 802.11b or 802.11g modem.

802.11b standard is rated at 11mbs. 802.11g is 54mbs.

However, your broadband speed is only up to 8mbs so you will not see any difference in surfing speed if you use 802.11b or 802.11g.

You will only see a difference if you send large files from one PC on your network to another on your network. If that is rare just get a cheaper 802.11b for now.

Sorry but you are falling for the manufacturers quoted figures which are absolute maximums and in real life the actual throughput will be less than half of these quoted figures. see here for more info.

Remember also that some broadband users get speeds of 10Mb or even 20Mb, so an 802.11b wireless router would throttle their connection speed. Even a fast 8Mb connection would be limited when using 802.11b.

Chippy_Minton

pintpot wrote:

.... just get a cheaper 802.11b for now.

You'll be hard pressed to find a purely 802.11b wireless router. Most on sale use the newer 802.11g standard, which is backwards compatible with 802.11b and can be switched to the slower mode if required.