Laptop as WAN Router WiFi Supplier

Hello, I am trying to connect my Desktop and laptop to the internet. I recently aquired an SMC Broadband Router, and am trying to do the following:


my laptop gets wifi connection, Im trying to use the laptop to plug into the routers WAN port to retransmit/route the wifi connection to my other computers.

Is there a way to use the laptop as a WAN modem/supplier?


thanks

 

Yes, but why do you need to do that? In order for your other computers to connect to your laptop, they need wireless network cards. If they have wireless network cards, they can connect to the router directly anyway, so there would be no reason to add another node between them and the router.

 

From what you've described, it sounds like you want to use somebody else's wireless internet and run your whole network with it.

Don't.

If you're in an emergency and need to borrow somebody's wireless, that's one thing (still illegal, but I won't hold it against you), but you actually bought a router which sounds like you want to steal the internet permanently...

Call your cable company and ask if they have a special on internet service.

 

no, I own an apartment building in a suburb nearby Chicago, this is going to be a preliminary router test to make sure I dont need to supply everyone with seperate internet lines, dont judge.

Is it possible, and how?

and kegobeer, the point is to hook the router into a hub, and use the hub to WIRE connect the pc's to the network, not wirelessly

 

Yes it's possible, But I still don't see how it's legal. If you don't have access to the modem to run it to the router, you shouldn't use the internet attached to it.

Edit; The reason I say that, is because it's very in-feasible to make everybody in your apartment building to buy a laptop, and a router. That's why I don't believe what you are saying.

Tell them all to get wireless cards if you want to share a net connection.

 

no, like this, the building is 6 floors high, the main router is on the first floor, I need to rebroadcast so the 6th floor can get the internet also. I have a router avalible, so it would be pointless for me to go and buy another booster if i can just do it with what i have. so i need to do this hub/desktop test to figure out if it will work before i put up the entire system.

so i was trying to ask the simple way but ya just had to drag out the loooong example from me, haha

 

It's called ICS - you can enable it on your laptop, and then configure other PCs to look for that new connection. Microsoft has even been kind enough to explain how it works; check your Windows help and/or the Microsoft website.

However, your laptop won't do much in the way of "rebroadcasting" the signal. Remember, this isn't a router that has a strong power output, it's a wireless NIC with minimal power. I highly doubt you'd be able to see that from the 6th floor.

If you want wireless for the entire building, you will need to use an AP in conjunction with the wireless router on the 1st floor. For best results, you should connect the wireless AP to the wireless router via ethernet cable, but it's possible to use all wireless (but you'll find your tenants will have much better connections if you wire the AP and the router together).

 

Depending on how big the building is and what interference you are facing, you might need more than 1 AP per floor.

I have all sorts of fun with interference and APs.

 

is there any way to use ICS to connect my router to my laptop, and letting the router re-broadcast the signal?

 

I doubt it. ICS is designed to share an internet connection between computers. The only thing you could try is to connect the laptop to the WAN port on the router, but AFAIK there's no way to tell Windows to use your wireless connection to connect to the internet connection, and use the wired connection to "send" to the router. Windows just doesn't work that way.

If you want to supply wireless internet to your tenants, you're going to need at least 3 or 4 wireless access points positioned throughout the complex. You might want to consider hiring a company to do this for you.

 

You should be able to bridge the connection between the wireless on your laptop to cabled on your laptop then connect the wired lan to the WAN port and have you router set to accept an IP then have the router re-broadcast the signal.

Just google bridge and you should get what you need.

Based on this the people on your router should be able to just share things between themselves and not be able to mess with your laptop.

Bear in mind this gets tricky when you want port forwarding.

 

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/wxpbrdge.html

This should help you with the bridge part.