Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

JonoColesUK

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 23, 2005
44
0
London UK
I ran a searchy on this one and couldnt find anything so here goes:

I currently have a crappy home built PC in my hall which i use for connecting to the internet. It is on a "BT Voyager USB" external ADSL modem
I recently got a G4 PowerBook and want to connect it to the internet using the broadband in the hall.

Is there a way of connecting my laptop wirelessly to the internet as the only other alternative I can think of is getting a new line installed in my room and I dont want to fork out £150 for that.

Any help much appreciated

Jono

:)
 

edesignuk

Moderator emeritus
Mar 25, 2002
19,232
2
London, England
Put a Wireless card in your PC in the hall, then you can enable internet sharing on the PC, and have an ad-hoc (a one machine to another "direct" connection) wireless connection between the PC & your PowerBook.
 

JonoColesUK

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 23, 2005
44
0
London UK
Sorry i forgot to mention that my PC is very old and useless (still running petium 2 lol and am in windows 98) and so i dont want to spend any money on it.

Is there a way of using the airport express for what i want. I dont care if i lose internet on my PC as it is going soon anyway and im the only one who ever used it.

Also how exactly does the Airport express work? (am noooob to Macs)

Thankyou v. much edesignuk

Jono
 

edesignuk

Moderator emeritus
Mar 25, 2002
19,232
2
London, England
Something like this would do the trick. It is an ADSL modem and wireless router, and only £67! :cool: It would replace your existing BT Standard modem, and give you wireless access to that connection, plus it'd give you a bit of added protection ;)
 

JonoColesUK

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 23, 2005
44
0
London UK
Brilliant

How would i set this up?

I mean after its plugged into my ADSL line how do i connect my laptop to it??
 

edesignuk

Moderator emeritus
Mar 25, 2002
19,232
2
London, England
I don't know the exact details, but it should be pretty straght forward.

Plug your phone line in to the router, and the router will get the connection to your ISP. The router will assign an IP address to your laptop and the connection should just "be there".

You may need to do some config on the router, security etc, which I don't know the details of, but it's normally pretty simple.
 

JonoColesUK

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 23, 2005
44
0
London UK
Cool


I just sent BT an email asking if my connection was compatible to mac and asked them if i needed a specific instalation disk for a mac (disk is needed to install ceratin drivers i think)

Thankyou v much im gonna get sometihng sorted this weekend with me parents

CHEEERS!!!!!

Jono

(now time to go take an exam lol)
 

edesignuk

Moderator emeritus
Mar 25, 2002
19,232
2
London, England
Seeing as you won't be using BT's modem you don't need anything from them with regards to drivers/support.

Have a search around (google is yur firend ;)) and find out what ADSL Modems/Wireless Routers other BT broadband customers are using is probably your best bet. There will be many people already with setups like you're after that they already have up and running and so can confirm there are no problems.
 

Applespider

macrumors G4
Don't believe a word that BT customer support tell you - they have no idea of what a Mac is. You can't read their help pages except through Internet Explorer although they don't have the decency to tell you that - it's kind of a trial and error 'why is no text appearing on this page'

If you can get out of your BT contract, I'd recommend it unless you're only on BT Basic. If you're on BT Yahoo!, then you'll be paying extra for functionality that only works on Windows.

Aside from that, all you need is an ethernet ADSL modem and a wireless router. The all-in-one that edesignUK pointed out should be fine. I have an ADSL wired modem and then an Airport Express so that I can play music through the stereo. My modem came from adslnation.co.uk - they also do a wireless version and have good Mac OS X instructions

The modem/router will come with instructions on how to set it up - it's usually done via a web browser and you can follow BT's instructions of what values to put where.
 

JonoColesUK

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 23, 2005
44
0
London UK
Thankyou very much

I have to stick to BT (Parents)
I think I'm gonna go buy a wireless router this weekend.

Once again thankyou very much

Jono

:D
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.