Rather confused by wireless

[slipperthief]

We have a phone socket at one end of the house, we have our desktop at the other end of the house. Normally we trail a great long extension lead through the house whenever we want to use the internet.

We don't really want to move the computer.

Is there some way we can get a wireless connection between the phone socket and the desktop? We're on tiscali (via a BT line).

You can plug a wireless router in at the phone socket, and get a wireless card installed in your desktop, and the two will then "talk" to each other.

I assumed it should be that simple but the one we just got from argos needs a physical connection then bounces on wireless to all other laptops.

Is there something in particular I should be looking for?

What have you bought from Argos? (Link?) Have you got a wireless router?

Have you got a wireless card in your PC? What router did you buy? I have the Linksys one which is a gateway. Your other option is to get something like a web n walk which is a dongle that plugs into any pc and provides internet, no phoneline/modem/wireless card needed.

Do you mean that you have a wireless router which has to be plugged in where the socket is, that the laptops can pick it up but not the desktop?

If so, you can either, as ilove suggests get a wireless card for the desktop, or get a wireless adapter which you plug into a USB socket, or use these

We've got a Belkin G wireless modem router link plus a belkin wireless g usb adapter from a friend.

I don't think we have a wireless card in the pc but the usb adapter seemed to work okay when we were seeing if the bt homehub would work (which it didn't as we're not on bt).

At least the two seemed to talk to each other okay.

You have to plug in a yellow cable to start with to get the wireless network set up, I guess that's what you mean? BIL did ours, but I think as we had a laptop and a desktop, we used the laptop to set up the wifi router using the yellow cable, then that could be unplugged, then we connected the desktop wirelessly once we had a network and password. I guess if you only have a desktop, you would need to hoik it down to the phone socket to set it up, then move it all back where it was.

I might be wrong, I'm sure someone on here can help you better!

You don't plug a "wireless router" into a phone socket, that's not what they're for.

A "wireless router" shares an already existing network connection wirelessly, that sounds like the sort of thing the slipperthief has got from Argos.

Slipperthief how do you usually connect to the internet? Do you have a broadband account or do you have a dial up connection?

If it's a dial up connection then a wireless router won't do the trick, you need a computer at the end of the phone line (as far as I know, though there's probably some gadget out there to do the trick).

If you have a broadband connection then you'll already have an ASDL Modem or a Cable Modem if you use someone like Virgin Cable.

Many ADSL Modem's already include a Wireless Router and are labelled as something like an "ASDL Wireless Router".

If you already have another ASDL Modem then the Wireless Router might be able to plug straight into it and share that connection wirelessly.

Is any of this making any sense?

Can you answer the questions and then I'm sure someone can get you rolling along.

That'll teach me not to read things properly.....

How are things going Slipperthief?

We have a dLan which means you don't have to have wireless, the networking is via your mains power. Works really well for DHs work laptop and home PC, neither of which have wireless