Broadband routers

Hope this question does not sound too stupid !

I am going over to broadband at last and have an Imac G5 which I intend to use wirelessly via an Airport extreme.

I got an additional router supplied with the broadband package and I also have a pc that is not wireless that my son wants to use. Can he use this pc with the router that came with the broadband package rather than having to buy a wireless adapter to go with the Airport ?
In other words, can I use two routers in the same house, one for the Apple and one for the PC off the same telephone line ?

Sorry but all this modern technology is doing my head in !!!

Del

no you will need to get a wireless adapter for the PC its the easiest way

inflexion said:

no you will need to get a wireless adapter for the PC its the easiest way

Click to expand...

Thanks inflexion, I had a feeling that would be the best way to go.

Cheers
Del

How many computers can be connected to your router? Normally it is more than two. If that's the case, you can also try the following setup.
1) Connect the router to the modem.
2) Connect your son's PC to the router.
3) Connect the router to the Airport Extreme.
4) Connect your Mac using the Wireless connection.

You can also connect the pc directly to the airport extreme.. and then connect to the it from the mac wirelessly. the airport extreme allows for one wired connection.

Ok and here is me making life easy least you now have all possible options

OK, thanks for the input guy's.
its appreciated.

Del

Hold on! You could just plug his pc into the LAN port on the airport extreme, and plug the broadband modem (not the broadand router, unless they are one-and-the-same) into the WAN port on the extreme. If there were more than one wired client, you could buy a switch (aka hub, but hubs are older and slower) and plug the switch into the LAN port, then all the wired clients into the switch.

To clarify - LAN = Local Area Network (your house network) versus
WAN = Wide Area Network (the internet)

You don't technically have to go wireless for your son's PC, but then you don't have annoying wires all over the place. <shrug> up to you. Feel free to ask more questions if you aren't sure what I mean!

Oh! I see PowerBookG4 beat me to this suggestion...

I recommend (for costs and ease of use):

Connect the modem to the Airport Extreme WAN port
Connect the wired client to the Airport Extreme LAN port

That's it! Be sure to use your Airport admin tool in Applications > Utilities to set a WPA personal password (not WEP) so that wardrivers don't steal your bandwidth. Also, I recommend setting a basestation password (to prevent changes to your setup). I also HIGHLY recommend renaming all the defaults to easy-to-remember names.

For example, I named the wireless network "My Wireless Network", my basestation "Airport Basestation", my basestation's airtunes connection "Airtunes" etc so that I always know what password to provide, and I don't get all confused. You might as well password-protect it all considering once you save them once in your keychain you won't have to keep typing them anyway. Just write them down!!!

Thanks guy's.
At the moment I am having problems just getting my Imac G5 to work wirelessly. I can get it to connect to the net using the ethernet connection from the computer to the supplied BT router which I had to do to set it up but when I try and configure it wirelessly it will not recognise any signal.
I am wondering if the wireless card thats supposed to be there is actually installed in the G5 now !
Unfortunately the helplines for BT or Apple do not seem to have very knowledgable people that can give good advice.

I have also tried setting up the Airport extreme without success.

Must be my age !!!

Thanks for all the suggestions anyway, always appreciated
Del

Hi All,
Problems sorted with Airport Extreme now. Did not realise that it needed to be connected to the modem/router before it would work ! Was told where I bought the mac that I just needed Extreme to connect straight to broadband !
At least I am learning all the time ! however frustrating !

Thanks for all the advice.
Del

Hey! That's what we're here for!

Just to clarify that for you, the Airport Extreme Basestation simply acts as a router for broadband, meaning multiple computers behind it (on your LAN) are seen by the internet (WAN) as ONE computer - just the basestation. This is called NAT (Network Address Translation). The basestation, depending on the model, does have a dial-up modem built-in for using your phone line to connect to your ISP (Internet Service Provider), if dial-up is what you pay for, but it does NOT have a high-speed modem for one good reason: There are many different types of high-speed.

If you have high-speed through cable, your coax cable connects to it's appropriate modem, which then connects to your basestation's WAN port. If you have ADSL high-speed, the special phone thingy connects to it's modem, which in turn connects to the basestation... etc.


The high-speed modem they gave you is also a router? If that's true, you may want to look into turning off any routing capabilities it has and use it only as a modem - let your basestation act as the router for you. This will simplify more advanced networking tasks you may be interested in, for the future.


Let me explain. (By the way, I am a networking specialist for the feds - <wink>) Networking traffic (packets of data) go through ports. Firewalls, very simply, close those ports. Some games require you to open ports to play them online. If you are using NAT, (which you are because you have more than one PC behind the basestation sharing the connection) you will need to forward any traffic on (for example) port 41000 to the computer used to play that game. This means that any internet traffic coming into your LAN from the WAN on this port will be forwarded to the proper computer instead of being blocked.

Different apps/games use different ports (ftp, for transferring files, uses port 21, etc). So, if both your modem and basestation are blocking ports, and your "Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3" requires port 41000 to be open, you would have to open 41000 on both. If you disable the routing on the modem, you only have to open it on the basestation.

I realize it sounds like more security, but in reality, NAT is no substitute for a real firewall. Hackers can get around NAT fairly easily, but NAT acts close enough like a firewall for the money-grubbing companies to be allowed to say (to fool networking newbies) that their broadband modems have firewalls built-in. That being said, two routers will just cause a headache. (Literally - this will confuse you but it's true - you'd have to forward the traffic from the modem/router to the basestation, then you'd have to forward it from the basestation to the computer).

(wow, this is almost a book! It might be clearer if ya read it twice! lol) Anyway, cheers, and enjoy your new setup! Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks a lot for the interesting and very informative advice. By now you will have guessed that I am new to all this wireless technology !!.

I did manage to get hold of a helpful Apple support person and we got the BT Navigator router/modem wired to the Airport extreme which worked ok except that when ever I restarted the computer I had to click the DHCP Renew Lease icon to get the internet connection again. Something to do with the IP address I think.
I decided that there was not a lot of point in having the two routers linked so I removed the Airport Extreme and just used the Navigator Router/modem and with some patience, got it to work wirelessly.
Looks like I have a spare Airport Extreme now !!

I was under the impression from the Apple salesman that the Extreme had a broadband modem built in so thats where the confusion came from.
I have noticed that by using wireless instead of the ethernet wired connection, it takes a little while longer to connect to broadband upon start up. Is this normal ? I guess it has to seek out the signal ?

Thank you for your understanding to the less knowledgeable of us.
Your help is most appreciated.

Regards
Del

Not sure about the DHCP. When I use my Airport Express basestation I'm connected right away. When I go wired ethernet I have to 'DCHP Renew' as well. I think it has something to do with the lease times for the DCHP - that is, how long that IP address is reserved for that PC. You could just go static IP if you don't bring your computer around to other places all the time. There are multiple advantages to this approach: You always know your IP, you can forward ports to it if necessary (see above), and no DHCP renewing would be required. Just be sure the address you choose follows the following rules:

1) It is within the same range as the rest of your network, but
2) Doesn't fall within the range assigned by your router.

Without going into too much detail, usually your router will support up to 254 computers behind it, but will be setup to only issue IPs within a range of about 50. For example, mine works with any IP from 192.168.0.1 (dot one is my router) to 192.168.0.254, but only assigns IPs from 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.150. Therefore, looking at the above rules, you'd be OK to use any IP from 192.168.0.2 - 192.168.0.99 (and of course any between 151 - 254).

If I might hi-jack this thread for a quick question. I too am setting up a wireless at my house. My wife has a iMac Intel 20 inch, I have a PowerBook G4 15 inch. We are going to connect her iMac into the RCA broadband box, can I use any wireless router (as in a D-Link) or does it have to be the AirPort Extreme? I also want to make sure that this system is open kust to our computers. Thanks!

Thanks again staticOverdrive for sharing your knowledge.
I guess with time and patience I will get it all to work as it should do !
Regards
Del

Dillinger-63 said:

If I might hi-jack this thread for a quick question. I too am setting up a wireless at my house. My wife has a iMac Intel 20 inch, I have a PowerBook G4 15 inch. We are going to connect her iMac into the RCA broadband box, can I use any wireless router (as in a D-Link) or does it have to be the AirPort Extreme? I also want to make sure that this system is open kust to our computers. Thanks!

Click to expand...

It doesn't have to be the AirPort Extreme---you can use D-Link, LinkSys, NetGear, etc. Best of luck to you...

youthpastor said:

It doesn't have to be the AirPort Extreme---you can use D-Link, LinkSys, NetGear, etc. Best of luck to you...

Click to expand...

Ok, the confusion for me was that the D-Link I bought has software for Windows only.

Dillinger-63 said:

Ok, the confusion for me was that the D-Link I bought has software for Windows only.

Click to expand...

That makes the process somewhat easier for Windows folks---but you can make them work.

Looks like I am back to square one !
While I was out yesterday, my Son decided to try and connect his PC up using a USB wireless adapter to connect to my base station/ router.
In doing so he has somehow stopped my Imac from connectring to the internet !! Just when I had sorted it all out !.
All I get on my Apple is a window which says that Macromedia has detected another device which has tried to access my BB wireless network !
When I click continue to allow this other device to use it, it just does nothing.

Not sure now how to eliminate this other device from my Imac so that I can re-connect myself. Anyone had similar problems ?

Regards
Del