Setup Wireless Broadband

Wireless broadband is becoming more and more desirable amungst internet users as time trundles on. Indeed, many people now expect to be able to surf the net, on a multitude of different portable computing devices, while drinking a coffee in a cafe or perhaps even at 36,000ft above the Atlantic on what would otherwise be just another boring flight. Simple fact is, people want to have the option of being connected almost everywhere.

In this article I'll show you how to rig up wireless broadband for easy access anywhere in your house and perhaps even your garden. I'll cover everything you need to know and also discuss some of the more important things that you should consider when setting up your wireless broadband. One thing I will leave out of the article is the price of the equipment needed, as this changes so much that it would need constant updating. But please don't let that put you off before you even get started. Setting up UK wireless broadband is actually quite cheap.

How Wireless Broadband Works

The easiest way to setup wireless broadband is to setup a wireless network. It's extremely simple to do and it will enable you to add more computers in the future, which will also be able to share your new wireless broadband internet connection.

When setting up a wireless network, you will need to buy what's called a switch or hub that all computers in the network connect to and communicate accross. As we want all computers in our network to share a wireless broadband connection, we also need what's called a router. When one of the computers in the network requests a webpage, the router will take that request, send it out over the the broadband connection and then "route" the response (in this case a webpage) back to the specific computer that made the request.

Thankfully manufacturers realised that people want to share their internet connections between different computers and so it's now easy to buy a hub or switch combined with a router as one single box that everything plugs into (or connects to wirelessly, in our case).

The diagram below illustrates this setup and is described below...

As you can see, the wireless router plugs straight into the ADSL / broadband modem which provides the internet connection. The computers in our network then connect to the internet via the wireless router. Most wireless routers have room for a number of computers that can connect both via network cable (normally RJ45) and wirelessly using radio waves.

In our diagram above, 3 computers are part of the network. 2 are connectev via network cable to the router and 1 is connecting wirelessly.

For a computer to connect wirelessly to the router, all it needs is a wireless network card installed. These are cheap and normally include a small arial for sending and receiving messages from the wireless router. Wireless network cards are also available for laptops, and again they're cheap. It's common for newer laptops to have wireless networking capabilities as standard as part of the Intel Centrino chipset.

Setting Up Wireless Broadband Is Easy

So, you have your wireless router and computer installed with a wireless networking card. Now what? Well, that depends on what brand of equipment you're using. But quite often you will be provided with a CD containing software which will walk you through the setup of your wireless broadband.