SHARING AN ADSL connection between two machines should be an easy thing. You just buy yourself a multiport ADSL router and plug the machines into it, right? But all that changes if one of the machines is not only in a different room but also on a different floor. The friend-who-knows-about-computers hat was back on.

The problem was simple, Henry's PC was upstairs in his house in it's own little office but Sophie liked to use her laptop downstairs in the dining room. It would have to go one of two ways, a monster cabling job or wireless. There was no contest. Although the wireless kit cost more, drilling holes through skirting boards and lifting the floor to route cables would be much more expensive in terms of effort and mess. Wireless was a far more elegant solution.

The Mistake
All the necessary kit was ordered, a microsplitter for each socket on the phone line, a wireless card for the laptop and a cheap Conexant-based ADSL modem/router that used an 802.11b PC-Card. Putting everything together was straight forward, the main PC was hooked up via a normal network cable and setting up the router through its web interface was easy. Then the problems hit.

Popping downstairs to set up the laptop, the wireless network card didn't see the router. A quick check over and the only conclusion seemed to be that one of them was duff. So the laptop was dragged upstairs just in case there was a signal problem going through a couple of interior walls and a floor. Upstairs in the office, it got a signal. Walk out of the office and it lost the signal. So much for cheap wireless ADSL modem/routers.

The Remedy
The router went straight back and was replaced by a Netgear DG824M. It cost half again as much but had built-in wireless rather than a card and, best of all, a proper antenna on the back. It might be that the walls were shielding the signal but, if anything was going to work, the Netgear was it. And it worked well.

Where the router had trouble getting a signal through even wooden obstacles, the Netgear got a solid signal downstairs in the dining room with no problems at all. Whichever route the signal was taking, it was getting through three interior walls and a floor.

Performance
With the laptop downstairs, it was time to run a few tests. The signal was between 90 and 95% strength all the time with no dropped packets. The ADSL connection was only a 512Kbps so 802.11b was fine for getting a full speed transfer. Risking the distinctly brisk air in the autumn sunshine showed that the Netgear had no problems with an exterior wall in the way too. Sat out on the garden table, the laptop was still getting roughly 80% signal strength but an occasional dropped packet. It was fine for surfing and email, there was no noticeable loss of speed from the ADSL connection.

The final test was to go sit on a bench at the end of the garden, some 60ft away from the house. Here, at last, the Netgear started to struggle. Signal strength was down to 40-50% and packets were being dropped all over the place. It was still possible to surf the Net but the degradation in signal meant that the speed was not much faster than a 56K modem. Considering the Netgear was as at the front of the house, as far away from the laptop as possible, with the signal travelling through those three interior walls and one exterior wall, it was doing very well.

Conclusion
The major lesson learned was to always go for a wireless router that has a proper antenna. Having spoken with others about the issue since, PC-Card based systems just don't cut it. Some wireless products have standard antenna sockets that allow you to plug in larger, higher gain antennas and, if you have a real obstacle course for the signal to get through, that could be the best option. The Netgear DG824M has a fixed antenna but that proved to be more than adequate for the job in hand.

The Netgear lived up to the promise of wireless networking. It did the job without any fuss and has performed solidly ever since. It saved a house from being rewired, something that after the lousy performance of the other box looked inevitable. The DG824M got a big thumbs-up from all involved. µ