Wireless internet access through a Wireless Access Point?

Question

I work for a law firm and set up a Wireless Access Point (Linksys WAP54G) in our office so our laptop and several of the partners' laptops they bring in from home can connect to our network wirelessly.

Now, my boss wants vendors and other attorneys who visit our office to be able to access the interent wirelessly if they need to. Is that possible without setting up their computers to log onto our network domain? I ask because I brought my laptop in from home, which has never logged onto our domain. I did have the WAP set up in WEP security mode using a passphrase generated key PLUS MAC address filtering. I removed the MAC address filtering and tried to connect my laptop using one several of the generated keys. It seemed to work, but I got no signal indicator and Internet Explorer would not connect. I also tried using no security mode (open wireless network) and it still didn't work.

I'm guessing that you cannot do what they want to do using a WAP. In that case, would I be better off using a run of the mill wireless router like I have at home and connecting it directly to the cable modem?

Thanks in advance!

sizzors · Accepted Answer

First thoughts here. First acquire another router call it router 2. Original router as router 1.

I would purchase router 2 with the ability to do wireless.

I would then plug a ethernet cable from Routers 1 Wan port to Router 2 Lan port.  I would make router 2 DHCP a 10.10.x.x.x network to clients. I would then set Router 2's Gateway to the Router 1's Network.

So your guests would see a signal from Router 2, connect and get a 10.10.x.x address and when wanting to internet, would be routed to Router 1's Gateway and should fine its way out to the internet without having to join your domain.

Now with some tweaking you might be able to get Router 2's clients to share some of the domain resources if you really wanted to. Such as printers, Faxes, ect. Maybe with Creating some VLans?

Regards

? · Answer

You need wireless cards. Like a USB wireless adapter for each wired device. You might have problems if the wired devices are running Win98. USB was still young when 98 came out. And you call them wired devices. If you are talking an old printer/scanner then it is more complex.

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Wireless internet access through a Wireless Access Point?

2 Answers