Going Wireless - Help!

penrhyn

Just to repeat my first suggestion, ask Orange for a free Wireless Router.

If they won't play ball request your MAC so you can move to another ISP who will.

Kettrin

Thanks again for the advice.........but one thing concerning me - if Orange do agree to send me a free wireless router will it be one that is good enough for my son's PS3 gaming + PC (+ laptop in the near future)

penrhyn

No reason why it won't. If there are any problems they are more likely to be down to your distance from the exchange, noise on the telephone line and your internal wiring than the router.

Kettrin

Do you think they'll try to tie me down to a 12 month contract if they replace my present router with an all new singing and dancing router?

SteveJH200

Kettrin wrote: »

Thanks again for the advice.........but one thing concerning me - if Orange do agree to send me a free wireless router will it be one that is good enough for my son's PS3 gaming + PC (+ laptop in the near future)

It's likely that you will be sent a bog standard 'G' router that isn't fast enough for your needs and the range will be limited. Therefore I suggest you buy your own 'N' router - one similar to the one I previously suggested.

flashg67

Kettrin wrote: »

Thanks
Well,my broadband speed usually says 5.8mbps when i switch on but an independent broadband speed test will usually say it's under 2 mbps and tonight it's reading 0.8. Would things improve with a new wireless router or do i need to ditch Orange? I'm not on a fixed contract with them. Gaming is VERY important - it's the son who is moaning the most!!!

Distance from exchange, internal wiring etc will all affect speed -keep extensions as short as possible - I increased my speed quite a bit using a filtered faceplate on my master socket and moving the router next to the BT socket, You may be able to do this once you have your wireless one?

'contention ratio' will also affect your speed, particularly in the evenings - basically you share the available broadband with up to 50 others. In the evenings - more users=less bandwith each. All suppliers do this unless you pay a fortune!

+1 for the Netgear - the setup & basic tweaking is simple and easy to follow

SteveJH200

Line speed all depends on where you live as mentioned above so it does not matter what ISP you are with. If the router can be connected to the master socket all the better but a BT engineer told me recently that the face plate does not make too much difference.
The router I mentioned before (TP-Link TDW8961ND) is the one I'm currently using. Despite having received some negative marks on Amazon, it is brilliant and I have installed 3 others for customers, two of whom are gamers. When I use InSSIDer it shows my router to be running on Channels 1 and 5 so I get the fastest speed possible. My PC adapter is 150 Mbps and I get the full amount. I have another PC in the spare room with a 300Mbps adapter and again, I get the full speed.
As for setting it up it takes me 3 minutes to configure - beat that!

GunJack

some further points....

1. the new, smaller, orange live box is almost but not quite as bad as the old one

2. gaming can be a subjective issue. WIth both my kids on xbox live and me online on a PS3, my 6meg interleaved connection (albeit with a decent 26ms ping) performs perfectly well. Tried fastpath, and TBH, it won't make that much difference if your interleaved ping is low anyway.

3. "a bog standard 'G' router that isn't fast enough for your needs and the range will be limited" - yes it will be plenty fast enough - 54meg between the router and the console will not be the bottleneck in the overall circuit, that'll be the broadband's 5 meg. Range?? how far do you need it to go ?? G is fine from bottom to top floor in a 3-storey house (well, it is with a D-Link 2640B), or do you wqant to set up the console at the end of a 150ft garden ??

4. NTE faceplates don't do much more than removing the bell-wire. Remove the bellwire from pin 3 and keep the existing one, unless suffering from major RF interference. Even better, run from the test socket permanently (I do) and no worries about the rest of your internal wiring, unless it's been plumbed in BEHIND the master socket


check out here for internal wiring optimisation:-

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htm