Choosing a New Internet Provider?

Be sure you ask the right questions.

I’ve gotten a couple of calls in recent months from family and friends who have changed providers and suddenly found themselves without Wi-Fi. I always start by asking them the same questions;

Does your new router/cable modem have Wi-Fi? To which they usually answer; how can I tell?

Okay, did your new provider leave you with Wi-Fi credentials, ie: SSID and WEP Key/Password, and if not, is that info listed on the router’s label? The answer to this is usually; hmmm, there’s a lot of numbers on the label…

At this point I politely cut them off and say; I’m going to need to stop by. When I do, I often find that their new gear doesn’t support Wi-Fi, and it seems to happen most often when people switch over to Comcast.

I’ve got Verizon FiOS at home, and you know what they say; once you go glass, you never go back, but some people don’t have that option. If your only choice is between Verizon DSL and Comcast Broadband, sooner or later you’re going to make the switch to Broadband.

The problem is, Verizon provides Wi-Fi with all of their products; get internet service, get Wi-Fi. With Comcast, it seems you need to specifically ask for Wi-Fi, as their standard cable modem doesn’t have built in Wi-Fi, only their “Advanced Wireless Gateway” does, and if you don’t ask, oh well…

Smart phones, tablets, laptops, smart TV’s, we’ve become very dependant on Wi-Fi these days. It’s become ubiquitous, something we expect and take for granted. Data invisibly streaming all over the place; it’s amazing when you stop to think about it.

Whoosh; there go our Thanksgiving pictures on their way up to my wife’s iPad, buzzing past me as I sit wirelessly streaming my iTunes library to my entertainment center. It’s a brave new world.

As I said, we really take it for granted, until someone pulls the plug, that is. When the Wi-Fi goes down, or you lose it when you switch providers, it’s a real problem, but not an insurmountable one.

Comcast will ship you their Wireless Gateway, for a fee, if you find yourself in this position and you call and complain, or you can just set up your own Wi-Fi router, which I recommend. It’s relatively easy, and is a more flexible solution for homes/businesses that present Wi-Fi coverage difficulties.

Below are some links to previous posts on both our website and blog that will help you setup and tweak your basic home network and boost your Wi-Fi signal, but the most important takeaway here is; when you’re thinking of switching providers, ask them if they provide Wi-Fi.


Choosing a provider

Setting up a home network

Wireless Network Settings and Solutions

Turning Wireless Routers Into WAPs

There’s a couple of ways to boost the Wi-Fi signal strength in a large home or business, the cheapest and easiest of which is to use a Range Expander, which is basically a signal repeater. I’ve experimented with them and found them to be functional, but lacking. You can read about it here: Linksys Wireless G Range Expanders.

The best way to boost your signal is to add a Wireless Access Point (WAP) or two in strategic locations and hardwire them back to your main router with CAT5e cable.

An Access Point is basically a wireless router without routing capabilities. There are many on the market, and for some reason they usually cost quite a bit more than wireless routers. A good example is the Linksys WAP610N, a nice device, but it’s twice the price of the WRT120N wireless router, with only half the functionality (1 wired LAN port vs. 4, no WAN port and no DHCP). You’re better served getting the WRT120N and dumbing it down a little. You’ll save money, you’ll have a spare Wi-Fi router “just in case”, and it’s really easy to do.

Here’s how:

Power up the router standalone, do not connect it to your network.

Plug your laptop into a LAN port on the router. Don’t plug in to the WAN (Internet) port. You won’t be using this port at all in this exercise.

Log in to the router by putting its address into the address bar of your web browser. Linksys routers have a default address of 192.168.1.1, as do most routers. Check your manual to be sure, though.

When prompted, leave the username field blank and enter admin for a password.

Now we’re going to change some settings, including the default address of the router. Save the address change for last though, as you’ll lose your admin session once you change it. No big deal, you can connect again, it just slows up the process.

Note: After each change, do a “Save Settings”.

Change the defualt password from admin to lock down the device. Be sure to write it down someplace safe!

Disable DHCP, you’re gonna let your main router hand out addresses.

Disable NAT (Network Address Translation). Once again, your main router is going to handle this.

Set the SSID and encryption key to match the main router's settings.

Change its broadcast channel to something other than what the main router is using. It’s a good practice to set it 5 channels off of the next nearest WAP or wireless router, ie: main is set for channel 1, next one is set for channel 6, next one is channel 11, etc.

Change its address. First, look to see what range your main router is handing out. A good bet is setting it to 192.168.1.2, as most manufactures set the routers to begin at .40 just for this reason, but be sure to check. An address conflict will hose you all up. Once again, be sure to write down the new address someplace safe. I keep Word documents with all the settings for each network I tweak.

One last save and that’s it, your wireless router is now a WAP.

The last step is to plug it in to your network. Use LAN port 1 on the new WAP, and any open LAN port on the main router. Refer to the diagram above.

You can add as many WAPs as you need for maximum coverage, and you will now be able to roam seamlessly between Access Points. Remember, each one needs to have its own unique address!

Turn Your Laptop into a Hotspot

Happy National Wi-Fi Week!

Actually, it’s not really a national thing yet, but here at berryjooks headquarters we like to kick off the summer vacation season by celebrating those little invisible radio waves that bring us all of that Internet goodness we crave when we’re unplugged and roaming.

We’re going to share a couple of tips with you this week, and we’re going to start with something simple, wirelessly sharing a single Internet connection between multiple computers.

There are two types of Wi-Fi connections; infrastructure and ad-hoc. An infrastructure connection is when you connect to the Internet via a Wi-Fi enabled router or a WAP (Wireless Access Point). An ad-hoc connection is a peer to peer (laptop to laptop) wireless connection that runs solely over the laptop’s Wi-Fi radios, no external hardware is involved. This can be a great tool for file sharing amongst a group when there’s no network available, or if there is a wired Internet connection available, you can take it a step further and enable Internet sharing on one of the laptops and use it as a WAP or Hotspot.

I had a friend ask how to set this up at their vacation cottage the other day, and rather than try to give them a tutorial, I did a quick Google search and found the excellent video below on CNET. It walks you through set up on Windows XP, Vista and Mac OSX, and it even discusses how some PC’s are set to shut down their radios when a wired connection is present and how to get around this.

Note: This video was made before the release of Windows 7, but the Vista instructions will work for 7 also.



Pretty neat, huh?

That's it for now. Later this week I’m going to show you how you can dumb down wireless routers and use them as WAPs to increase your wireless coverage in a large home or office, so stay tuned!

Linksys WRE54G Wireless - G Range Expander

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

I recently installed a Linksys Wireless-G Range Expander, the WRE54G, and I have to say its working better then I expected.

I got a call a while back from the manager at our vacation time share. Seems the wireless, which was spotty at best, had stopped working altogether. Another owner had donated a couple of Linksys Range Expanders, and she was wondering if I might be able to come down for the weekend and see if I could get the WiFi up and running again, and maybe install the Range Expanders while I was there.

I was all over it, mainly because:

A. We love the place, and the people who run it.

B. It would benefit me greatly to have better coverage when I’m there. All my gadgets would work!

C. The fix/install would be a cakewalk and we’d be free to enjoy the rest of the weekend. Bonus!

Well, the fix/install wasn’t as easy as I had hoped, but it wasn’t bad either. We still had plenty of time left over for a little off season R&R.

Upon arriving, I set up in the office and immediately noticed that I was getting two 5 bar WiFi signals. Different SSID’s, but I was receiving both like they were broadcasting from the same room. Probably because they were.

Originally someone had plugged a Linksys WRT160 wireless router into one of the LAN ports on the office’s Verizon router. This had worked OK, but mostly just provided coverage in the lobby area. When I tried to log in to the Linksys router wirelessly using its default IP, I found myself connected to the Verizon box instead. I double checked the notes that the original installer had left and I was using the right address, so I tried again. Same result.

That’s when the light went on, and I got down on my hands and knees. To crawl under the desk, that is, so I could take a gander at the provider’s router that was hiding under there. Just as I thought, it had a little WiFi light on it, and it was merrily blinking away. AHA!

Seems Verizon had come in over the winter and upgraded their router. Once their new WiFi router was up and running, they very nicely plugged the Linksys WiFi router back into it. Problem is, both devices had the same address, and they were within a few feet of each other. There was a major IP conflict going on, and the dueling radio signals were wreaking havoc on each other. Easy fix. I just shut off the Linksys, re-cabled the office PC’s with longer cords, and moved the Verizon box up on the shelf where the Linksys had been. A quick reboot of everything after the Verizon router was back up, and we were cookin’ again. Nice.

Now it was time to tackle the Range Expanders. I had read quite a few reviews that indicated that they could be a bear to set up, but initially I had no problems. First I did a quick signal check to find the initial coverage boundaries. The building is a large 3 story C shaped structure and previously only the first floor rooms adjacent to the lobby had coverage. I found that the signal was much stronger now and I could connect from all of the second floor rooms in the main hallway. I would lose signal when I turned the corner onto either of the wings, but hey, it was a start.

I went back down to the office and plugged the first Extender into a switch port on the router. Don’t use the included setup CD that comes with it, just plug it directly into your router and log into it through your browser using the default IP address. It’s much easier and cleaner this way. If you feel that you just have to use the CD, then use it as a drink coaster. You’ll be much better served.

Setup was a breeze. I configured it with the Verizon box’s SSID and security settings, shut it down, unplugged the Ethernet cable from the switch port, and then powered it back up. It immediately found the WiFi signal and connected, indicated by the idiot lights turning from flashing red to steady blue. I popped its address into my browser and connected to it wirelessly, good to go.

I shut it down again, removed the power cord and replaced it with the included wall mount plug (think nightlight), moved it up to the second floor and plugged it into a wall outlet that was just inside my coverage zone. Once again, red to blue and I’m good to go. After another signal check I decided the next one needed to go up on the third floor.

I logged into the first one again, changed its default address so it wouldn’t conflict with the new one during setup, and it came right back up. Next I brought the second extender into the office and repeated the setup process. Perfect. Switched the back plate, brought the unit up to the third floor and plugged it in. This is where the fun began. After two power cycles, I finally got the desired blue lights, but upon returning to the office I found that the wired desktops had lost all connectivity. WTF…

A reboot of the router cured things, but now one of the extenders wasn’t showing up on the network. Once again it took two reboots of the extender to get it back in the blue, but wouldn’t you know it, the router was only passing wireless traffic again. Hmmm.

I tried all kinds of stuff, to no avail. It seems that a second extender connecting back to the router through an existing extender slaps the Verizon box with the goofy stick (technical term…). Both work fine when they’re in close proximity to the device, they both show up as registered on the router, and I can log into either wirelessly. When they’re both remote they still show up on the router device list, but one always shows a disconnected icon, and the Verizon box eventually takes leave of its senses.

I finally gave up on getting the second one up. I could have tried turning WiFi off on the Verizon router and hooking the Linksys router back up to it, things might have worked better Linksys device to Linksys device, but it was getting late and I was leaving the next day. You never want to mess with the provider’s gear if you’re not going to be around to pick up the pieces should things malfunction later.

Coverage was much better with the new setup and the single extender (third floor now!), and we’re actually better served with just the one. A little known fact about extenders is that you only average about half of the speed of the original connection when you connect through one. If it connects back to the router at 54Mbps, it will pass along 22Mbps connections. Daisy chain another to it and you're now passing along 11Mbps, and that's before you factor in competing with other traffic, signal interference, etc. While some connectivity is better than none, some isn’t, and you’d be approaching the “isn’t” range with a second unit.

The right thing to do in a case like this is to pull Cat5 cable to your locations from the main router, and then hardwire WAPs to the network. WAPs are Wireless Access Points. You can purchase dedicated WAPs, or you can just dumb down any old wireless router and use it as a WAP. Take a WiFi router, turn its routing capabilities off in the setup, and it becomes a switch slaved to the main router.

We left it that the cable pulls would be targets of opportunity. Next time they need to open up a wall or ceiling, pull some cable. We can install the Linksys WRT160 that I took out of the equation on this last trip once the first cable is in place. A simple and cheap plan of action, my favorite kind!

So, bottom line, the WRE54G is a great product if you’re trying to boost the signal in your home, but it’s not the right solution for a large installation in a hotel or office.

Oh yeah, and you get great service when you visit places in the off season.

That is all.

Free Public Wi-Fi?

Every so often when I refresh my available wireless networks list, “Free Public Wi-Fi” pops up as an available ad-hoc network. I usually don’t troll for signal unless I’m on the road, so seeing it pop up in numerous locations really piqued my curiosity.

Had I stumbled onto some great and noble geek humanitarian effort; a plan to give free Wi-Fi to the masses? Or, more likely, was it a diabolical plot by unscrupulous villains to steal my identity and trash my computer? I was intrigued, but as so often happens, I got busy, lost the thread, and never looked into it.

It popped up on my available networks list again last week while I was on vacation, then on my first day back someone asked me if I had ever seen a “Free Public Wi-Fi” offering and if I knew what it was. They even voiced my own fears that it was someone up to no good. Well, that was it. I started Googling and found a plethora of information.

It seems the phenomenon has been around for a while. The first reference I found to it was in 2006 on the Houston Chronicle’s TechBlog. It appears to be a Microsoft “feature”. When your laptop can’t find a wireless network to connect to, it will offer itself up as an ad-hoc node for others to connect to, advertising itself with the name of the last ad-hoc network it tried to join. I guess Windows is sending out an electronic mating call, in search of other offline geeks.

The Chronicle writer’s theory on the actual spread of the SSID name “Free Public Wi-Fi” is very good and is worth the read. After you finish this, of course.

The Fix:

To be done with it once and for all, open up your “Available wireless connections” screen, click on “Change advanced settings” and check the box “Access point (infrastructure) networks only” under “Networks to access”. That’s it. No more Free Public Wi-Fi. No more ad-hoc networks period.

It would have been much cooler if it really had been a great and noble geek humanitarian effort. I’m so disappointed.

Wi-Fi Security - Disabling SSID Broadcast

If you're using Wi-Fi in your home or business you should make sure you take the proper steps to safeguard your network and computers. While many people enable WEP and Authentication on their routers, it's just not enough.

There are always people scanning for available Wi-Fi networks (think about the last time you were on vacation, you were probably scanning for available networks yourself!), and if they can find yours and they're smart enough, they can break in. Here's a few simple tips to help you keep war drivers, and the neighbors, out.

First thing you want to do is change your router's admin password. Every manufacturer has a default password, and every unit they ship is configured with it, so when you're doing the router's initial setup, change it. While this won't keep interlopers from using your network, it will prevent them from getting into the router and changing it's settings.

The next thing you want to do is enable WEP and Authentication. This will encrypt your data and will only allow systems with the right "Key" to access the network. For more information on WEP and other security protocols you should visit the Wi-Fi Alliance web site. You can find a brief overview of WLANS and their recommended security practices here.

The last step is to change the SSID (Service Set Identifier) and turn off it's broadcast. This is the step many users miss.

The SSID is the name of your network, and just like the router's admin password, they all ship with the manufacturers default setting enabled. When you scan for available networks on your computer, it's the name you see pop up on the list. Usually you will see the manufacturers name, D-Link, Netgear or something similar. Sometimes you'll see something clever like jimsnetwork or maryjane. Don't do this. Not only are you making it easy for someone to figure out, you're also broadcasting your personal information to anyone with a Wi-Fi enabled device in your vicinity. I see routers in my neighborhood that are either set to the default SSID, or someones name, and they're unsecured. Don't be these people.

Change it to something random, like bLtzpHk8, and be sure to make a note of it and keep it somewhere safe, preferably with your router's documentation.

Next, you want to turn off SSID Broadcast. This setting is usually on the performance tab of the router's setup. Once you disable broadcast, people will see only the manufacturer's name when they scan, not the real SSID, and they won't be able to connect. You'll have to enter the correct SSID in your computer or phone's Wi-Fi setup to be able to see or connect to the router.

Simple but secure.