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On Sat, 5 Nov 2005 16:41:33 +0000 Peter Lloyd-Jones wrote: > On Saturday 05 Nov 2005 15:58, Grant Sewell wrote: > > Thanks Grant > > Thanks, I think I can see where I am going now. The lady on the phone was > however quite adamant! > > Very simply I see my "black box " as being a wireless hub daisy chained with > CAT5 onto my ADSL Network Router thing. Which is where your links lead me. > > Thanks again. > > Peter No problems Peter. Basically, you want a single router to be at the "outside edge" of your network, ie it joins you to The Internet. Routers can have multiple interfaces, but you can get away with just 2: 1 for ADSL and 1 for Ethernet. For a cabled network you would ordinarily connect multiple machines (or "hosts", or "nodes") to a "switch" which you can then connect to the router. For a wireless network, the WAP (Wireless Access Point) takes on the role the role of the switch (plus a few other fancy features). Access Points often have only 2 interfaces: 1 wireless (which can accomodate multiple concurrant wireless users) and 1 Ethernet. There is nothing to stop you from connecting a WAP to a switch, which then connects to the router, thus enabling both wired and wireless network communication. If this was a new network installation, then it may have payed to go for a wireless router since you can reduce the number of discreet network devices, and potentially reduce the cost. However, when you look at what these wireless routers do, they are generally just ordinary 3 devices in 1 box: a router, switch and WAP. Since this isn't a new network, it would make better sense to go for a WAP rather than having another router. Hope this clears up networking at least a little. Grant. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe. FAQ: www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html