bobpeers -> blog

A friend bought a new laptop on my recommendation but now needs it setting up with a wireless connection. She lives in a small flat, has very basic computing needs and only has the one computer currently connected to her cable modem.

I advised her just to get a cheap 802.11g router since these days even a cheap basic model is more than adequate for her needs and they can be picked up for 200-300 DKK (about $40-$60) . Her laptop has the Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG module built in like many laptops these days.

When I came to visit and set up the network I saw she had a Wireless G+ MIMO Modem Router and after talking to her a few thoughts sprang to mind:

1. This router has a built in ADSL modem but she has internet through a cable modem so can’t even replace the cable modem with this box, instead she will have to use both. Then why sell her a router with useless ADSL modem built in?
2. Part of the sales pitch was of course speed, how this is G+ and runs at 108 Mbps compared to the standard 54 Mbps. Two problems here, looking at the product page it’s clear that to achive this she’ll have to use a compatible card for her laptop. Since she doesn’t want to buy more hardware this speed is just not true.
   The other problem is that since she doesn’t have an internal network but just connects directly to the internet it doesn’t really matter how fast the wireless works just as long as it’s faster than her internet connection!
   So many people don’t get this, but it even if the wireless works at a quadrillion Mbps it will only be that fast from her laptop to the router, after that it will run at 2 Mbps, the speed of her internet connection.
3. Another selling point was range, the idea that MIMO suffers less from interference and has a greater range that standard 802.11g products. Bearing in mind that she will usually be sitting less that 10 metres from her router this seems a bit pointless.

At the end of the day it’s easy to upsell computer equipment to the general public since the whole field is full of cryptic codes and changes every 10 minutes it seems.
But that’s why you need people you can trust to sell you the right thing rather than just think about the companies bottom line while, unfortunalty this service is all to rare these days.

After my recent problems with networking in Vista I’ve come across even more serious issues.

Last weekend we visited my girlfriends brothers who bought a new computer last year but have never been able to get it connected to the internet. It’s common in many flats in Denmark that the building has it’s own internet connection that is then shared amongst the flats; basically creating a LAN in the building. It’s fast, cheap and if it fails then it’s not your problem to fix.

I was trying to get a connection (they have Vista Home Premium) but all it kept saying was that the LAN connection could not be identified. I tried every possible fix but nothing would get me a valid IP address. Her brother told me that they had been warned that the buildings LAN didn’t work with Vista and they should get a router to connect through so they had bough one just in case.

Sure enough as soon as I connected the router everything worked without a hitch, they router was assigned an IP address and the router gave out an IP address to the computer.

The sheer fact they they were forced to spend money on a router that should be totally unnecessary amazes me. It basically means that everyone in their building buying a new computer will have to also buy a router, unbelievable!

This exercise in futility also made me think more about carrying around a bootable USB with some Linux distribution installed, or maybe a Linux Live CD to be used for testing and diagnostic tasks. One of the problems I had was that I couldn’t easily tell if the problem lay with Vista or maybe there was no internet connection at all. If I could have booted into Linux I could have easily diagnosed the problem and been sure it was with Vista from the start.