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D:Fi

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Nov 7, 2000
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Scenerio:

Wife is pregnate
Need to work from home which requires broadband & VPN to the office.
Cable Broadband is the only option.
Only available cable jack location requires wireless hardware.
Will be networking a desktop (XP Home) and a laptop (XP Pro)
Laptop will be used at work (wired) and home (wireless).

Question:

Due to the above scenerio, I need to set up a wireless network at my house that incorporates a cable broadband connection, a desktop and a laptop that will be used at work and at home that will be able to use a VPN that connects to work. I do not have any of the hardware to accomplish this task, which looks like it will require a cable modem, router/access point and nic cards.

Based on this information, what wireless standard and brand of hardware would you recommend? I am leaning toward the Linksys brand, as they have all the components I need and will essentially be a "matched" set. Also, periodically I will be printing and transfering 10mb+ Word docs back and forth.

Your recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
I've used some Linksys stuff and it has worked great for me. They have routers with access points built in which would work perfect for your situation. They also have a signal booster should u run into some issues with that.

I would however deviate just a little from Linksys for the laptop. The linksys PCMCIA network cards work, but I hear that a card like an Orinoco Gold (for 128-bit WEP) or a Silver (for 64-bit WEP) is more sensitive and therefore could possibly give you better range or speeds.

If you can afford it and you'd like better speeds, go with 802.11 G. B will work, but G should give you better speeds. Just check on the Orinoco cards supporting the G standard. (I'm not 100% sure cuz I was looking for one for a B access point.

Good luck!
 
I would recommend that you talk to your companies IT department and get them to work with you. See what they will allow. IE: We won't let wireless home networks to VPN in. Before you go out and spend the money on the needed hardware and then have to change some of the purchased hardware.
 
Wireless VPN in is not a problem. Already ran it by our somewhat unsophisticated one man IT department.

I am just looking for a brand(s) that is reliable and relatively easy to setup.
 
Eh, they're all fine for the most part.. My personal preference goes for Netgear and SMC, with D-Link shortly behind.

I've had problems with Belkin Wireless NICs, however.
 
Originally posted by Blitzrommel

I've had problems with Belkin Wireless NICs, however.
Click to expand...

Agreed.... Belkin Neworking is pretty worthless. They should stick to making excellent, albiet overpriced, cables.

Specifically relating to your issue....

A co-worker of mine had bought a Belkin Access Point/Router. It supposedly supported VPN connections (i.e. like a PPTP and IPSec Pass-Through option) however he could never get it to work and there was no option for it in the configuration pages. Belkin's Tech Support told him the router worked so it must be his computer. So he disconnects the router and goes straight into his DSL modem and it works. Go figure.

So stay away from Belkin. I also like Netgear, but I've never been big on D-Link. A friend had a D-Link router that kept having to be reset several times a day. It's since been replaced by a Cisco 2514. ;)
 
Get a netopia R Series router (any of them) set it up an a VPN server then from home use windows VPN to tunnel into the netopia and your work network. The netopia's are about 50 bucks on ebay. You can get any R series may it be ADSL,SDSL,ISDN,ETHERNET. Does not matter, your just going to use it as a VPN server.
 
Originally posted by Nybbles
They should stick to making excellent, albiet overpriced, cables.
Click to expand...

lol, their velcro ties are cheap and nice. It's the only Belkin thing I'll ever buy again. :)
 
Thanks for the Help. I ended up ordering the following:

Modem: DLink DCM-201
Router: Dlink DI-624
PCMIIA: DWL-G650
NIC: DWL-520

After an exhaustive weekend of comparison shopping and reading reviews the DLink Extreme G stuff "seemed" like the best bang for the buck, that suited my needs.

One again, thanks for the help.
 
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