Running my entire network off Mobile Broadband for free

Hi guys,

I need some help in improving my internet speeds at home. Currently I receive 0.25 mb broadband at home, with no prospect of my line speed being increased any time soon.

I've got Vodafone Mobile Broadband which can give me speeds of 2.5 mb at home. I want to route this broadband so that the entire house (5 PCs) can take advantage of these much faster speeds, without any additional cost. I was thinking, can I plug my mobile broadband into my server, and make my router run as an access point to share the network? I've got a pretty bog standard Netgear router:

http://netgear.co.uk/home_wireless_adslrouter_54mbps.php

Could someone kindly tell me if I could actually do this to replace my fixed phone line, and if you know, what settings I would have to configure to do this? By the way, I have a storage device connected to the server - would that continue to function if it was an access point?

Thanks.

 

You can definitely use such a method to relieve you of you slow broadband connection. What you need are a cross-over (or mayb straightthrough. depends on age of PC) ethernet cable (cat5) and a LAN port on the PC that is running your vodafone broadband mobile card. The first you do is enable Windows ICS. Simply go to Network Connections, or navigate to where it shows the network adapters present on your system. See my screen shot, since I don't know what OS you're using. Once you click to share. Then simply link you PC to the "Internet port" on the back of your router with the cross-over cable. Once you do that. reboot your router and check the status of the connection on your LAN ethernet port on the PC. see if its pulling an ip address. usually you get some in the 192.168.0.x range... a 169.x.x.x signifies it's not working.. If you have an IP, connect another pc in your home to the wireless access point of the router and attempt to use the internet, it should go.If not, then post back and I'll provide further info/instructions.

 

I share my mobile broadband through a simple adhoc network, but what youre talking about can be done.

Also, you could check out these mobile broadband routers at 3gStore and skip all the fuss, but they are a tad pricey.
http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=137&zenid=18b00a696b3073c6621da0ac4a04bcd2

What I think is interesting is that their newest router can support up 3 cards and share the bandwidth.
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Thanks for that, I will get back to you in a few weeks on how I'm doing. + Rep

EDIT: I'm running Windows Xp Home edition. Is there a way to configure the router-server wireleslly, not via Ethernet? Thanks

 

Yes, there is. If you have a WLAN, wireleless card, on the laptop with the Voda Adapter and if your router supports an adhoc connect, which most do not. The ethernet solution is all that tedious. Just keep the vodafone pc connected via ethernet to your router, and all the other pc's in your house will be wireless. If you want to make matters easier, simply use a desktop as the vodafone pc, and connect to ethernet to that; this will be better since the desktop is stationary to begin with, so you won't be tethered to the router.

 

i recently bought a Billion 7402nx which has support for usb broadband:

http://www.billion.com/product/3g/bipac7402nx-wireless-11n-3G-ADSL2-vpn-firewall-router.html

a bit pricey, but id had enough of flakey dlink and others. anyway its got gigbit, wirelesss n, and support for about 3k connections, apparently. some people recon it improves there adsl speed as well. i recon youd eventually save a load of money by running this over a server just in electric costs.