Yeah. In a rather expensive part of town, I can leave a job site and connect into three or four networks while still in the car, so I can do my billing before I even go home. One of the networks is named "home." Use the security features and I won't be using your bandwidth, or worse, looking to see if I can see your hard drive!

Yep, isn't it BEAUTIFUL :-). Hey, if the Internet is going to be regularly bombarded with viruses because of naive users who click on every attachment they get, they at least ought to do something in return for us :-). It is not common for me to visit houses now where I can pick up 7 or so wireless connections from the neighborhood and at least one of them if not more is usually unsecure. In my own house I can rely on the neighbors for backup if my router crashes and I don't feel like going to the basement to reset it :-).

wow, thanks alot for the inputs guys!! this part of the forum sure gets alot of action, my thread was buried in a day!

my wife isnt keen on putting out the $1k(are they ever???) or so it would cost for the initial set up of wireless (i would need a new faster modem, new router, then gear for each device to be compliant). she figures we should just keep it simple and pay the $40/mo for an entirely separate connection. i tend to agree as not only is it EASIER FOR ME, lol, but then i wouldnt have to worry about sharing a connection with 2xboxes and 2 PC's. as in the near future i will need a total of 7 devices hooked up.

currently i have -

basement - 2 xboxes, one PC.
main level -Modem
upper level -Xbox 360, PC.

near furure-

basement -2 xboxes, 2 PC's.
upper level -Xbox 360, PC, PS3.

whataya all think?

PS:needless to say springs i'm not EAGER to enable the wifi on my Nevo ; ).

cma: sorry if i'm not at your level. if you didnt pick up on it already i'm not eager to shell out large dollars here. thanks for your input though i do appreciate your time.

All you need to do is leave the modem and router where they are, add a wireless access point ($79) by plugging it into your router, and add a wireless card to your computer $49. That is way cheaper and easier than two internet connections and $40 a month. When you add more devices in the future, most new computers come wireless enable so there would most likely be no additional money in the future other then possibly a wireless box for the xbox. If you have allready set up networking on your computers, putting the wireless in there is no deal, if you don't care about encryption it is just plug and play, and if you want to set up encryption and ssid the wireless stuff has simple web based gui's that are really simple to understand.

thanks alot cma. my reason for thinking i have to upgrade is i am having to reset my router at least 3 times a week. i'll be online and suddenly lose connection. so as it is i only allow one line being used in the basement. and i am rarely online with my xbox at the same time as being online with my PC, so it seems my router cant even handle 2 PC's at the same time(i rarely lose connection to xbox live-i'm not on it often mind you).

anyway, thanks again, Christian

Go into your "Network Connection Properties" on your computer and go to the "advanced" tab and make sure that "allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection" is not checked. I just had a client who was complaining that he kept on getting kicked off of his network and he didn't believe that the network I set up was working properly. I found that little box checked on his computer and unchecked it and he hasn't had a problem for a few weeks now. What that does is act as a DHCP router in a way and allows other computers to run through yours in case you have an old setup without a dedicated router in the system. It will cause all sorts of problems.

There is such a thing as gigabit ethernet. Think you need cat 6 for it.

Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how much crystalline-form heat/pressure treated carbon that can buy?

It sounds like he already has built in wireless on his PC. The local PC shop will laugh and add another one via PCI for $150 or more. Not sure why you guys keep telling him he needs a wireless PCI card.

As for Xbox 360/live go wired. Nuff said.

If I was you I would do both wired and wireless. A second modem is crazy. You can have a guy come out and add your wires and set up your wireless with wep/wpa for lets say $600/700 tops probably less, including the router/WAP (wireless access point). This setup would pay for itself in just over a year, compared to a second modem. You probably have digital cable also, my guess is you already hate to see the bill you get now from your provider, you really want to add another $40 to that?

This whole thing about wireless being good enough speed wise is not really accurate either. The only place a wireless G router runs at 54 Mbps is in the Marketing dept of said manufacturer. Bittorrent will soon become a mainstream way for anybody to distribute large files. A company like IBM for example can get a huge file to a end user currently by hosting it and paying crazy money for bandwidth from a provider, or they could set up a .torrent for the file, host that and let the people share it from there for little or no bandwidth fees. Bittorrent over wireless = frustration. .02

Don't give away the encryption secret, so easy to get online wherever. It's so nice to able to jump online while doing a little programming without even getting up to plug in the Cat5.

cat 5e, I believe