Need some advice on setting up Wifi

[grunjhed]

Currently have the Telkom Mega 100W or whatever its called and have serious signal strength issues. So popped down to Incredible Connection and bought myself one of these:

http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/WRT54GL

Now in my inifinite wisdom I assumed a 'Broadband Router' would be an ADSL modem and router combination, but no, this isn't the case.

Would I be better taking it back and getting the Netgear one:

NETGEAR 54MBPS WRLS ADSL ROUTR (DG834GUK)
http://www.incredible.co.za/services/catalog/moreinfo.asp?sku=68550

My router has to stay put and I am wanting to improve the signal strength even if it means having to buy higher gain antenna that I believe the Linksys can accommodate.

Would I be better getting the Netgear one or looking at maybe getting some kind of Linksys gateway/adsl modem combo to put inbetween the telephone link and this 'broadband router'?

 

[grunjhed]

Had a bit of a 'post syncing' issue and only had this approved now being a n00b and all and desperately needed to get my wifi sorted.

Went back to Incredible Deception and got me one of these:

http://www.dixons.co.uk/martprd/pro...SL+Wireless+Routers/Netgear/Wireless+N/537732

Thing is, now it looks like I can't get a high gain antenna for this as they dont seem to come off. Anyone know whether I can 'bridge' this one to the Telkom router?

I am eventually going to go all Linksys/Netgear but in the meantime will have to stick with this solution, especially if I can bridge it.

Thanks to the mods for their patience with me

 

[rebel998]

The Linksys would've worked fine. You just need to plug its WAN port into a LAN port of the Telkom router.

 

[emptyshadow]

The Linksys is a Cisco owned company. Cisco is the best networking solution. So I would say it should be able to do it. I doubt they would release a home based router without ADSL capability's. Why do you think it does not work. How did you test? Remember. The Telkom ADSL Router might be preconfigured to do the correct routing? Maby do a Route Print command in your PC's CMD. Compare the values to see if anything looks different?

Maby post exactly how your setup is working now and how you want it to work and also what you have done so far to test.

Sorry I am have never actually worked on a ADSL Router or a normal household router, but I am working with networks on a big network so to me it sounds logical to check the config. I might be wrong, maybe a normal ADSL Router works completely different.

 

[BLIXEMPIE]

Your first mistake was going to IC.

 

[Jizzims]

lol ......

 

[kilos]

Linksys WRT54GL R675 from PCMall curious to know how much were charged at IC

The Linksys would've worked fine. You just need to plug its WAN port into a LAN port of the Telkom router.

Fantastic device you can reflash it with another firmware with plenty more functionality DD-WRT

 

[grunjhed]

Thanks for the input guys (and gals if any). I agree that the Linksys is a super superior device. Problem is I wanted to replace the Helkom router, and the Linksys router didn't have an RJ-11 port.

Ideally I will eventually have this Netgear as a 'silent' wifi nap and have all Linksys stuff. But until I can afford that I need to replace the Helkom one.

The only way this would have been possible would be to buy a linksys ADSL modem but that is way too expensive for the moment.

 

[grunjhed]

@emptyshadow - yes, i am 100% sure it didnt have a built-in ADSL modem. It only has the ability to redistribute the ADSL through the router, not take the RJ-11 connector. Yes, I agree, its strange but hey, maybe someone should ask them why they did it this way?

@BLIXEMPIE - Very very true. But I was prepared to pay way over the odds to be able to go down to the shop and return it if there is an issue, rather than have to deal with postage and packaging and the post being lost etc.

 

[TheFox]

I had a look at the WRT's prices at IC a month ago, If I remember correctly R1350.

And yes, mistake 1) Incredible Rippof, mistake 2) Returning what is probably the best homebased Wireless AP around (For inhouse use)

 

[henkk78]

The Linksys is a Cisco owned company. Cisco is the best networking solution. So I would say it should be able to do it. I doubt they would release a home based router without ADSL capability's. Why do you think it does not work. How did you test?

The Linksys WRT54GL is a Broadband Router, NOT an ADSL modem.

It has an RJ-45 WAN port which you can connect to a variety of different modems, whether DSL, iBurst, Fibre etc...

Many people, including myself, prefer to have a dedicated ADSL modem in bridge mode and then run a Linksys router to take care of wireless & routing.