making a pc a wireless hotspot

my mother in law's PC in Hong Kong connects via on old style modem to broadband. It has an ethernet connection, but isnt "always on" like in the UK, you have to "dial up" through Windows.

When I go back to Hong Kong, I want to turn her pc into a wireless hotspot so that i can access the net on my phone and ipad.

Other than buying a wireless router/modem thing, what would be the cheapest and easiest way of creating a wireless hotspot?

Thanks

Steven

Assuming it has a wireless card just set up an adhoc connection.

Haven't done it in a long time but to add to Batboy's comment I think you would also need to switch on "Internet Connection Sharing" in Windows. With ICS and a adhoc network you should be able to surf the net off the back of the PCs connection.

Get her an early Christmas present and buy a suitable router and configure it.

Chances are that the dial-up is just PPPoE, which is fairly simply and if you look for her specific ISP there must be people suggesting suitable hardware that is available locally.

Indeed, cheapest way would be ICS.

But if it is a dial on demand connection you will need to ensure that the tick box for "allow other users to control or disable this connection" is ticked.

no wireless card... can i do it with usb? and if so what would i need to buy?

hi andreew

hope you're well.

i'm not quite sure what connection it is, need to find out i guess.

i'd rather not spend money on a router thats unecessary. im only going back for a month, just need wifi while im in the house. everywhere else has free wiif.

A USB wireless adaptor, should be feasible to create an ICS from the dial-up to this.

A long time since I've done it, but gave up because of the pain it would often cause, e.g. getting PC to do it, and then software firewalls getting in the way etc etc

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Get her an early Christmas present and buy a suitable router and configure it.

Chances are that the dial-up is just PPPoE, which is fairly simply and if you look for her specific ISP there must be people suggesting suitable hardware that is available locally.

This.

The small amount of cash saved will be more than outweighed by the hours of faffing to set up ICS and make it all work properly.

Here's the kind of kit you need. Should be cheap too - how many people want a router that does dialup only?

Ebay item = 190454919938 (about 4 days left....)

Edit - rats, you need wireless. Will rummage a bit more, but most of the 56k routers were around before this wireless lark really caught on, that netgear dates from about 2002-2003.

Double edit - Bluetooth to 56K is quite common, Belikin, Zoom, Trust all make modems like this. Phone and iPad already have BT, and the PC could get an addon usb dongle for about £2 at hong kong prices.

Alternatively, some of the better routers can fallback to dialup. An early Draytek, maybe? The current 2820 range can do this, don't know the older ones well enough to name a model.

Edited by deleted (Wed 13-Oct-10 13:22:51)

it isnt 56k dial up... it is broadband speed, its just not always on. the modem dials the connection everytime.

hmm so router might be best as you say... its difficult to find out what set up she has, becuase they are old (ie no idea re technology) and dont speak any english.

wow just been trying to find out about their modem. their provider, pccw, does 1000m fibre to the home, for about £33 a month.

The word dial is the confusing bit. Some of us know what you mean...it usually means PPPoE session initiation.

In MS Windows they re-used the 'dial-up' interface for users, hence why dial is often mentioned.

http://www.geoexpat.com/forum/119/thread150191.html

Suggests as I thought, PPPoE connection, so almost any cable/DSL router will do, i.e. one with an Etherent WAN interface.

No idea on local store names to look in, if you pay for my ticket will happily visit and set it all up for you. Given its gigabit you want something newish, best bet is see what others in Hong Kong are using.

In reply to a post by _Steve:

it isnt 56k dial up... it is broadband speed, its just not always on. the modem dials the connection everytime.

DOH! I saw "old-style modem" and, er, you know....

Edited by deleted (Wed 13-Oct-10 19:11:54)

Yep thats it.

Right, i;m here now. Turns out it is a wireless modem. But I cannot access the router's admin page (configip says gateway is 192.168.8.1 but this diverts to setup.net - which is not a local webpage but trying to access the proper setup.net on the internet.

what d i need to do to convince the browser not to go to www.setup.net but to the routers pages?????

have read the user guide, it doesnt mention this

What's the IP address of the PC?
What's the IP address of the router?

Go to a command prompt and do

Route Print 0.0.0.0

What routes are active?


You need the PC and the router in the same subnet.

in chinese:

IPv4 ¸��Ѫ?
===========================================================================
¨ϥ£V¤ªº¸��?
º����تº¦a º����B¸n ¹h¹D ¤¶­¡� ¤½¨?
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.8.1 192.168.8.2 4245
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 ¦b³sµ²¤W 58.153.60.100 21
===========================================================================

Try
http://lifehacker.com/5369381/turn-your-windows-7-pc...
Does this makes any sense...?

Connectify will do the job if your mother-in-law's PC is running Windows 7.