WiFi From Wired Only BB

Hi All

I thought I had asked this but I cannot find it. Then again iv been made up with flu so please bare with me.

My daughter is of to Uni next weekend and although she has BB supplied free in the halls of residence it is only via Cat5. Now what I would like to know is the easiest way of giving her WiFi in her room from one of the wired points Only she has her laptop her phone and her ipad and her Ipod so without wifi she will be up the creek so to speak especially when she does her notes on her Ipad and then transfers then over via network because we all know how Apple blue tooth does not like anyone else's blue tooth (There is to many pad and pods LOL).
So Im just looking for the best way and the reason the easy is incase it goes wrong and I have to talk my daughter through fixing it?. So any suggestion would be of great help.. as we are taking her down on the 20th of this month..

Many thanks

Regards Osh

If it is just plug in and no credentials to enter, then simplest way would be a wireless router.

This will take a single IP address and share that between several devices, and also add a couple of extra Ethernet ports for when she might want to plug a laptop in.

Small TP-Link router £19.35. Handy USB charging port

Standard shape router £14.98, not the fastest wireless but should be enough for inside halls room.

The TP link interface can be a bit more geeky but is fine, otherwise Asus have a slightly better web interface but you pay more

£21.48 basic entry level router

If wanting to provide best wireless then you are looking at £40+ and want to find a dual band device, i.e. supports 5GHz which is less prone to slow downs and the newer Apple kit should support

Hi

Thanks for the reply I was not sure if it could be used like a normal service as it must service quite a few students And I did not want to disrupt it at all. I do have a couple modem routers So I would think I could use just the router part and use it like a access point then?.

regs Os.

It does depend on whether it is just a straightforward connection without any login / security or whether it requires a login in process in the same way that commercial WIFI does (think APs in cafes, pubs, restaurants etc).

I got my daughters connection to work with a Billion router but it wasn't simple as they didn't allow connection from more than one MAC address so the login process got a bit convoluted!

To add while it is possible a wireless access point may work, probably only support a single device that way and as pointed out MAC can be an issue.

If the connection is an unknown factor, taking a wireless router is possibly safest best for now.

I have used one of these in the past to share a hotel wired connection. It will also share a hotel wifi connection http://www.asus.com/uk/Networking/WL330NUL/

halls of residence it is only via Cat5

My son went to uni last year and the terms and conditions said (from memory) "no devices to share like access points, switches and routers"


Check on the uni website.

Ian

It really depends on who provides the internet from what I've seen. Has your daughter received any emails relating to who is providing the internet at her accommodation?

I was in uni halls last year with internet provided by StudentCom, they had no issue with me using a router to share my connection (which was very useful as many people had issues with WiFi that StudentCom provided themselves), however other providers such as Ask4 do not allow the use of NAT on their network so you can only use your router as an access point with DHCP disabled. If the internet is provided by the uni itself then it's a mixed bag.

If you don't know who's providing it then I'd say the best bet would be to bring a wireless router and configure it accordingly when moving there.