Wireless & Dialup Internet

[Corey0808]

First off I didn't really know where to put this post so I'll attempt here. I just had someone ask me if they could have wireless internet on a telephone dialup connection.

I told them I would get back to them.

My thinking was it is a possibility. I think that it is possible if you have a USB or RJ45 access point in the machine that gets the telephone connection and the access point will share the internet wirelessly when they log into the internet provider.

I'm not sure though. Please Clarify!

 

[nweaver]

Yes you can, Use ICS (intenet connection sharing). Build a wireless LAN (access point plugged into your computer at the simplist level) and run the ICS wizard.

 

[Corey0808]

Excellent I thought so.

Would it be worth the money spent to split up a 34.4Bps connection???

 

[anarchyreigns]

Or they could just use this:

http://www.alwaysonwireless.com/wiflyer.html

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: Corey0808
Excellent I thought so.

Would it be worth the money spent to split up a 34.4Bps connection???

No such thing. Even the 300 baud earliest modems were faster than that. They were 37.5 bytes per sec (not counting overhead).

Or did you mean 34.4kbps? That factor of approximatly 1000 makes a huge differance.

He needs to try a 56k modem in that case. Maybe he can get up to like 48kbaud connections. Unless the line conditions really suck and thats his max. Anyway, a 34.4kbit connection will net you about 3.5kbyte/sec of usable downstream bandwidth. I used to share a modem connection between 2 or 3 computers. Kinda slow, but if thats all you have it might be worth it.

There are several options for sharing.
One: Use one of the computers and use windows built in ICS (internet connection sharing). That computer will need a modem and a network card. Network cards being about $10, thats not expensive. Every other computer that he wants to share needs a network card also. If he has more than 2 computers, he will need a network switch, but again these aren't too expensive. Get them on sale for around $20 or so.
This setup will require the computer with a modem to be turned on whenever any computers want to use the internet.

Two: This is the one I did. Find an old computer (I used an old 486) and use one of those floppy based easy to install linux router dialup setups. You'll need a modem and a network card in the computer. This computer can be practically fanless if its an old 486 or an early pentium 1 (or pentium 2/3 up to around 300mhz, faster ones needed a cpu fan), since they put out not much heat. You can run them quietly and low power 24/7 which is what I usually did. You need only a floppy drive, hard drive is optional. I think I had like 16 megs of memory in mine. This computer will share out the internet connection. If you want more info I can dig up links on the specific free linux software to use for this setup.

Originally posted by: anarchyreigns
Or they could just use this:

http://www.alwaysonwireless.com/wiflyer.html

They could yeah. But thats $150. More expensive than either of the above solutions would normally be. But it does let you share the dialup wirelessly (very conveniant) and without a computer with a modem being on all the time anytime someone wants to use the internet (as far as I can tell from thier webpage).

 

[JackMDS]

There is an option that costs a little more and yields decent surfing.

Look here at option 2: Sharing the Internet with DialUp Connection.

:sun:

 

[Corey0808]

ya I meant 34.4Kbps, oops sorry . Essentially what I'm asking is that would it be worth it to split up a phone line connection that isn't even at full speed?

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: Corey0808
ya I meant 34.4Kbps, oops sorry . Essentially what I'm asking is that would it be worth it to split up a phone line connection that isn't even at full speed?

See above replies that mentioned costs and links to solutions.

For me, some internet access would be better than none at all, which means I would put out the few bucks it would take for one of the cheaper solutions. But if you are on a fixed income from social security and have $5 per month spending money over your bills, and that $5 is for your grandkids birthdays. Well then its kinda hard to get the few bucks nessasary. There's no way to give you a YES or NO answer since we dont know your financial situation or what you consider worth paying. Some people in your situation would pay out $30 with no problem to solve it one way, others would pay out hundreds of dollars to solve it another way. So thats why I mentioned the costs and some other links mention the costs as well. You have to make the final determination based on those costs.

Or were you asking in terms of performance and not cost? Again for me, some internet would be better than none. I'd be willing to live with it just to browse web sites like AT But any dialup, regardless of shared or fast or not, I dont think you are going to be d/ling those 300 meg 1280x720 HDTV (720p) xbox 360 promo videos from E3 anytime soon.
Link here in case anyone wants http://bink.nu/Article4562.bink

The least amount of money would be using the ICS built into windows. You just need a network card for every computer. These can be as little as $10 each on sale, or even less.

Next would be getting one of those things external 56k modem with routers thats mentioned in JackMDS post. $50ish or so I'd guess.

Then there's the wireless device that anarchyreigns mentioned, $150.

Costs can vary, but those are at least 3 options for you that were mentioned previously by multiple people in this thread.