We're moving into a granny flat of a family friend this week and as a gesture of thanks we've offered to pay for the entire house's internet, and setup a wireless network in the house.

I haven't bought a router in a longass time. I've had a Billion and a Netgear router, and both have ended up s***ting themselves after a while. I basically need to know a good wireless router to buy for around $150, and also how to connect both my computer, and the PC upstairs wirelessly if possible (external solution would be best so I didn't have to install any hardware into the owner's computer). Also, I'm wondering just how well the wireless signal will travel between walls and s***?

So yeah, any help is really appreciated. Thanks

i like billion routers, but havent ever really had to consider a wireless network of this sort of range, plus the fact that wireless is totally dongs and should be avoided at all costs when a hardwired network can be had

so, i dunno, you'd probably want to do some research on what routers have the best wireless range

my billion (7300g) picks up various other routers around the neighbourhood, but i dunno what their signal strength would be like for my permanent network needs

mite be worth looking at a router that you can upgrade the antenna on

last edited by Spook at 20:59:17 17/Mar/08

I think you can get USB wireless.

Also look at a wireless router when you can add a bigger antenna.

can u get that internets through power sockets yet? that would be sweet

Also look at a wireless router when you can add a bigger antenna.

You actually want to avoid a bigger [dipole] antenna as it increases directionality and makes multi-floor reception incredibly difficult.

Better off with a powerful wireless router and a powerful card (USB or otherwise), but installing software usually can't be avoided unless you have a wireless router on the other end in client-mode and have the dude plug an ethernet cable in.

wireless is totally dongs and should be avoided at all costs when a hardwired network can be had

truth

so you're gonna get broadband and run this through a wireless router for other house PC/lappys?
or your getting wireless net and sharing the connection?
i'd go option 1 then you get the good connection but you'll need a wireless card for the other PC. USB ones are around.
Belkin is my router......been going strong for 2 years now
got it set up on ADSL on main PC with 3 lappys running off the wireless about 15-20 mtrs away max at anywhere in the house and through 2-3 walls depending what room your in. brick and gyprock house.
good enough for general internet, email, flash games, vids etc.....

I have a wrt54g at one end of my house and it goes through a couple of walls to get to the other end and you can stream internet radio ok but anything else is probably going to be a bit slow. I haven't tried playing games up the other end of the house because until now my laptop was unable to even play the original CS. To tell you the truth I only ever used the laptop up the other end for radio in the garage while I worked on the car. f*** normal radio and their talking/adverts.

You can get USB wireless adapters yes but you're still going to need to install the drivers for it and, possibly, some sort of wireless utility will automatically install with them which you can either use or throw away and use the built in windows client.

WRT54GL running tomato firmware or DDWRT will allow you to increase the transmit power of the router to get a better signal TO the computer, but if the USB adapter you buy is a low powered one it won't do you much good if the router can't hear the computer.

edit: oh and these actually work.

when is trog going to make a sticky wireless router info thread?

last edited by whoop at 22:50:15 17/Mar/08

Personally i would buy Billion 7402 because of its QOS etc... which is quite handy when sharing your internet... I would see how the wireless goes with that... then if that doent work i would get a wireless access point http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=122&bid=2&sid=12164

to help out :) if you guys are all on the same power.. you could use http://au.billion.com/product/powerline/bipac2070.php

I'd never heard of the tomato firmware before...

I use DD-WRT on my WRT54GL and its pretty good, the GUI isn't as good as it could be and I find it a bit complicated some times.

As for range, you could shell out for directional antennas, otherwise try and get routers and cards known to have good power ratings...

DD-WRT lets you up the power... but I find it dificult to know just what I should be setting it to for my router, at higher power levels (it lets you take it to ~ 250mw) you get a LOT of noise...

tomato lets you do pretty much everything DDWRT does except for overclock the CPU. I'm running an old v2 54g and a v1.1 wrt54gl here to connect my xboxes to the internet in my room with the tomato firmware.

I used to use DD-WRT but I noticed my ram would frequently get down to a few hundred KB free even on the mini version of the firmware. also if the power went off the router wouldn't come back on and I'd have to power cycle it a couple of times to get it back, so I just switched to tomato a month or so ago to see if it was any better.

You're not meant to take it past 78mw I think it says in DDWRT's built in help without the addition of extra cooling because it creates a lot of heat.

Tomato firmware's UI is REALLY basic if you're used to linksys/ddwrt and can be quite confusing at first but once you're used to it it's ok and seeing as you never see the UI most of the time anyway I don't see what it matters. There's some screenshots in the wiki page linked on the tomato homepage.