for dorm: wireless access point, or wireless router?

[gjeste]

okay, so I think I'm going to make it so I can use my laptop in the lounges of my dormitory (w/o ethernet cords),
but in order to do this, I need to get a wireless card and router/or access point, since I have neither.

The card I already have picked out I think,

but I'm wondering. do you guys think I should get a router or an access point? They are about the same price, on pricewatch.

now let me get this straight. if I got just an access point, the advantage would be that my notebook would still retain
its IP on the college network, right?

Where-as if I got a wireless router, I could use it for routing purposes if I wanted to, but then my router would be the only thing with a network IP, and my laptop and computers which use the router, would get IPs like: 192.168.0.2, etc
right?

I'm thinking the access point might be better, because then I dont have to re-register anything on the network, and other people can use it just as easily too, under their own Mac addresses, (whereas the router's mac address would have to be registered under my name, which could cause me to take the hit, if someone got in trouble for downloading something, etc)

any thoughts with you guys?

 

[rainypickles]

i didnt know you could do that with routers. that would be interesting to split up. what routing purposes would you have to need a router anyway?

i think you should go with the access point, because i've read that access points are more versatile than routers. they can be bridges and other stuff, i think.

maybe your dorm has wireless already?

 

[gjeste]

unfortunately our dorms dont have wireless already.

i think im going to go with the access point though, since that would just make a lot of sense.

 

[toleraen]

yes, the access point would pass on any dhcp requests to your schools dhcp server.

I would highly recommend contacting your network administrators / help desk before doing this. I work for my universities telecommunications & networking department, and if anyone gets caught using an access point / router, they have their network access taken away for extended periods of time. The security threat from misconfigured access points can be huge. giving anyone free access = bad. Toss a router on the network and it gets even worse, as that router can take over dhcp if the request is answered by the students router before the actual dhcp server is. bad bad bad.

 

[Imdmn04]

router sucks, its a pain to configure it in order to get file transfering working on chat programs.
Get an access point.

 

[ViRGE]

I use a router myself because of the protection involved(Uni networks are a scary place), but I don't offer free access with it either, so in your case, the access point is probably a better idea.