Suggestions : Wireless Modem Access Point

[Jamin W. Collins]

On Tue, 2001-12-11 at 05:31, Tom Gallagher wrote:
> Heres my scenario : -
> I am going to buy some wireless LAN cards soon for my small flat (Linux and 
> Win98 desktop PCs + laptop in the future) and I would like to buy a modem 
> access point. I would like a small box that I can sit by my phone socket and 
> then access the internet from any PC in the flat.

I probably tend a little towards over-kill in these situations, but I've
never really been a fan of plug-in network appliances.  IMO, they always
tend to constrain you in one way or another to what the manufacturer
thought was needed.  Why not rather take an older PC and configure it to
provide access to the internet via your phone line?  This way you'd be
in full control of the connection and be able to impliment any kind of
access control you wanted.  If you found that something was quite right
you'd also have the freedom (and most likely the means available) to
change it.

> I was also worried about security of not allowing my neighbours to use my 
> phone line for the internet!  In practice what is the likely hood of this. I 
> read the "long rant" thread on this and it seems for home use security is 
> not much of an issue.

I'm not much of a wireless buff, I can only speak for my own
experience.  I rather recently installed a Wireless Access Point in my
apartment (upper two floors of a coachhouse) for use with our two
laptops.  Shortly after this, I started experiencing what I thought were
odd connectivity issues.  That is until I checked my IP address.  By
remvoing and reinserting my Wireless NIC at various points in the
apartement I found three diferrent Wireless Access Points within range. 
All of which allowed seamless Internet access through them.  The only
thing that brought it to my attention at the time was my inability to
reach my internal hosts.

So, to say that home use security is not much of an issue would be a
rather nasty mistake in my book.  

Jamin W. Collins