How To Setup Your Own Wireless Internet At Home

In the last few years wireless internet has become a necessity for most users rather than a luxury. Although there are many wireless internet packages and devices available from numerous ISPs, yet due to signal constraints it can be difficult to acquire a decent wireless connection in some areas. Users in such scenarios have no option but to rely on ADSL connections for using the internet. In such a case an ISP may or may not provide a package for getting a wireless router installed at your premises. Many a times such packages can be more expensive than simply buying your own wireless router. In this post I will tell you how to configure your own wireless internet in order to make your ADSL connection available for wireless usage.

For this configuration we are using a TP Link 54m (802.11g) wireless router. Normally connecting your wireless router with your active ADSL switch with a cross cable will instantly provide wireless connectivity. However, this method will also allow unrestricted access to adjacent systems in the neighborhood to use the internet connection. This can also cause network security issue. To prevent this from happening you can secure your connection with a key. To do this you will have to access your router by connecting it to your system with a straight cable. The reason I am advising connecting the router to the system directly is because if you have a new router it is possible that it may have the same IP as your ADSL switch i.e. 192.168.1.1. In case the IPs are separate you can simply connect the router to the ADSL switch with a cross cable (If you don’t know how to make a ethernet cable you can ask your vendor to make a cross/straight cable for you). Nonetheless, many routers normally come with ethernet cables. To get started, type the IP of your router in a browser or Windows Explorer and press enter. Most routers have a default IP of 192.168.1.1. For checking the factory default settings of your router, you can consult the manual. After that you will be prompted to login with your user ID and password. Most routers by default have admin as both.

Since most routers come with the same default IP, therefore, in case you mgith not be able to connect your internet wirelessly as well as to a a system which has no wifi card. In such a case you may be unable to the internet on both systems. To resolve this issue you can always go to the network settings to change your IP to be able to connect both wirelessly and via the network cable to seperate systems. this option can be located in the LAN tab in the Network drop down menu.

You can change the default login credentials to make your router more secure from external attack. This option in my router was located in System Tools, in the Maintenance drop down menu. The location of certain settings may be present in separate sections of different, switches, routers, IP Phones, etc.

To add a key to your router you can go to the security section and configure your wireless settings. You can use ASCII or Hexadecimal key format with a 64, 128 or 152 bit key type (depending on your router options).

• For 64-bit encryption – You can enter 10 hexadecimal digits (any combination of 0-9, a-f, A-F, zero key is not promitted) or 5 ASCII characters.
• For 128-bit encryption – You can enter 26 hexadecimal digits (any combination of 0-9, a-f, A-F, zero key is not promitted) or 13 ASCII characters.
• For 152-bit encryption – You can enter 32 hexadecimal digits (any combination of 0-9, a-f, A-F, zero key is not promitted) or 16 ASCII characters.

After you have configured these settings anyone with the key and a Wi-Fi card attached to their system can connect to your wireless network (within a certain range).

If you ever wish to revert to the default settings you can always restore to the factory default settings from the Factory Defaults section. This will restore your login credentials, IP address, etc back to the original factory settings.

Summary

1. Attach Your wireless router to your ADSL moden via cross cable in the LAN ports.

2. Access the wireless router via the IP.

3. Encrypt connection with a key.

4. Save your settings.

Optional

1. Change wireless routers IP.

2. Change login credentials.

It might be useful for many people to understand such basic configuration procedures as I can tell you with experience that whether one has to configure a Cisco IP Phone or a router/switch, the basic rules of configuration such as the ones mentioned above will apply. To avoid confusion, I have not referred to the rest of the settings as they are normally not required for setting up this kind of connection. As it is highly unlikely that you might have to configure your router options for  PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet), which by the way my ADSL device is configured for.