Dial-Up home wifi network?

I live way out in the boonies and only have dial-up available.
I'm currently using a 5yo Toshiba Laptop w/XP sp3. This laptop has wifi b/g.
I connect the phone cord into the toshiba's modem jack.

Is it possible to set up the Toshiba as a wifi hotspot?
Doesn't have to be anything fancy. If I could connect to 1 other computer at a time that would suit. I just want to be able to sit in a comfy chair with another computer or phone and use the same internet connection.

I've looked for the answer to this several times over the years and never found a satisfactory answer.
Seems like it can't be done and I don't understand why.
I can use my WinMo phone as a wifi hotspot no problem.

I looked at my old Belkin router from when I had DSL and it won't take a regular phone line connection.

I must be missing something... Please tell me what it is...

ETA I've read most of the OP of the sticky at the top and looked through about the first dozen pages of this section of the forum.
Thanks.

 

You would need a modem to convert phone line -> ethernet connection, unless you're laptop has a wireless card that also works as an access point.

 

Thanks nikeseven.
So it ISN'T something easy like "Well just download this program blabla and click here and here"?
I can't believe you have to jump through so many hoops on such a complex. powerful machine...
Like I said, I use my phone to do it effortlessly. With the program I found for it, it's a 2 click process to have a hotspot any wifi equipped device can use.

This is really tearing me up...

Thank you.

ETA How would I find out if the installed wifi card in the toshiba can be used as an access point?

 

You can use "Internet Connection Sharing" on Windows XP to turn your laptop into a wifi hot-spot.

Windows XP: Set up a wireless network without a router

Of course, you'll need to keep the Toshiba connected to Dial-Up anytime you wanted to use a wi-fi device to access the internet, but if that works for you then have at it!

 

YES!!!
WOW!

Thank you so much for that booboo12!
Looks like it works. Couldn't get throughput on my phone, but it detected/connected.
Phones can be funny that way... Can be done, but I'll have to search around.
But I'm getting my new/old Panasonic Toughbook tomorrow and I do believe it'll work.
Can't thank you enough!

 

Back when I worked at a dot com, we sold a router that had a built in dial up modem and handled all of the connection chores, unfortunately I don't remember what it was called or who made it. Take that and you can use the notebook or better yet, attach an actual wireless router or access point. Done through Ebay you could probably do it for $20-$30 for everything as these are rather old and you don't need a fast router.

Also, you may want to look into the 3g wireless internet options from Virgin Mobile ($40 a month for unlimited) or satelite internet. For the latter all you need is a view of the southern sky.

 

Thanks leslieann. I've looked into some of that. Seen mixed reviews about the satelite stuff. Too much $ right now anyway. Looked into the wireless phone type options too. Don't know about Virgin, but when the others say "unlimited' they really mean 5gb. Old fashioned dial up router is looking pretty good right now because.....

After following the instructions on the site booboo12 gave, it SEEMS to work as far as the connection goes. Both my PocketPC and my new/old ToughBook (YAAAYY!! NICE!!) see the connection and connect just fine.
But I'm missing something somewhere. I can't actually get them to do anything once they connect. IE won't go anywhere.
I've fiddled with everything I can think of to get it to work, but no joy.
They make solid connections. Full bars. But that's it.
And it's difficult trying to troubleshoot this myself because wherever I check it starts with "shake your ethernet cable real good and then make sure the router isn't leaking smoke..."
Soooo. Anybody know right off what my problem could be?
Thanks.

 

Virgin doesn't have the 5gig cap like others, it really is unlimited.


On the secondary systems, set the DNS and gateway to 192.168.1.1 (it may be 192.168.0.1, I forget, it's been a long time since I used it). Also on the wireless you are sharing make sure it has no gateway listed. It shouldn't but sometimes they do. Also I could be wrong, but I thought ICS was only meant to share with one system at a time. You may need to create a bridge if you want both to connect. A little more complex but nothing too bad usually. Oh, make sure you are not using a proxy in I.E. connection settings and enable auto lan configuration on the slave systems.

 

Thanks again leslieann.

I've run around in circles with this and I think I've messed up more things than I fixed.
HAHA!! Ended up somehow getting my phone's settings intermingled with some other stuff.... kind of a mess... makes my head hurt.

Something I've seen many times now is on the Search for Networks screen the discriptive paragraph says I'm connected and the graphic in the upper right corner says Not Connected and vice versa.
Tis evil spirits vexing me.

Still working on it.

 

If you get lost, start over. It only takes one tiny check box to ruin everything even is everything else is perfect.

ICS is a pain.

 

WOOHOO!!!!

I just got it working!
My new/old Toughbook is d/ling updates as we speak. And here I am on my Toshiba!
Awesome.

I got as far as I could with it yesterday and gave up.
Then today on a whim I just started messing around and got it.
You mentioned Gateway. So I went into the dial-up program and looked all through it. Unchecked "Use default gateway" and I think I did some othe rstuff to allow this computer to share. I just went with the default names wherever they came up.
And another thing I might have been doing wrong was trying to connect the master computer to the network instead of just taking the easiest default stuff that came up. I was renaming things to the network name instead of just clicking through.
I think I could do it again if I had to... maybe.
Anyway, I'm pretty excited and I wanted to come here and thank you guys so much. DEEPLY appreciated.

 

Awesome, glad to see you got it figured out!

 

Congrats!
Kinda how some windows networking is (particularly ICS), just start clicking and at some point it works, sometimes for no apparent or good reason.

 

I didn't know that dial up still existed! x]

 

Dial-Up goes places where broadband could never go... expect it to stay around for quite some time.

 

I have customers who just don't feel they "need" broadband (it's a hassle when I have to work on these systems, thank you Blackberry!).

The sad part is that for only $5 per month more they could get slow broadband. The extra they pay for my time there waiting on AV updates alone would have covered a few months.

 

I know right! Most of my clients that have Dial-Up, while few and far between, live too far away from the DSLAM to have DSL, and the cable companies won't run a cable drop out that far, they say it's too cost prohibitive... so it's either dial or mobile broadband from VZW, Sprint, or AT&T. Surprisingly I have several clients that have VZW's EV-DO as their sole internet connection option, and I have to say it's MUCH faster than dial.

 

HEY!

Don't be disin' my blazing fast d/l speeds of 5.4kbs (It ALWAYS settles down to that. Never higher)
Sometimes as low as 2.4....

Teaches patience and humility.

My Verizon Omnia gets 12-15kbs avg. real world d/l speeds.
I'm a couple miles out of 3G range. Was a little slower with AT&T when I had them.
I checked the Virgin broadband coverage. Very borderline here.

If I could get anything faster I'd be all over it. But other than satelite there's absolutely nothing but d/u available. No cable. No DSL. And the cell phone stuff is hit or miss. Not enough improvement to make a commitment worthwhile. Plus another $40-$60 a month.

YouTube??? What the heck is that?
Took me close to 3 hours to d/l the Avast free a.v. package.

My little wifi network is solid though.

 

3 hours sounds about right.

Time for a sneaker-net.
Wear your sneakers into work with a thumbstick and download your A/V (this can work for Youtube as well).


Working in I.T. I can't go without decent speeds, it just doesn't work. Even while working in offices with DSL, I still carry a big thumbstick full of up to date utilities and such.