Hey, I'll be getting the MacBook Pro 15'' next week (or at least I hope the Back to School deal starts next week) and I will be needing a router for my dorm in college next year. Is the Airport Express worth the $95 or should I just go with a cheaper Linksys router? I have the WRT54GS right now for my windows PC's at home and it works fine, would that work alright for Mac?
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Need router for dorm
- Thread starter ProperNoun
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The airport express is nice for the AirTunes and printer sharing functionality, but to be honest a wireless router is a wireless router. The Linksys would work as well as any other.
are you sure you need one? Just asking because my college has wireless in dorms and actually gets mad at you for having your own router.
Wait until you get there, light up your notebook, and then try to see which one of the 50 wireless signals in range belongs to somebody you trust.
Buy them a pizza, and ask them if you can use their wireless.
Save the cash until you move off campus. Then look into what's secure and decent at that point.
Buy them a pizza, and ask them if you can use their wireless.
Save the cash until you move off campus. Then look into what's secure and decent at that point.
Any router will work. But setting one up might be a pain depending on how your dorm network is setup.
Completely agree.
I just finished my freshman year of college. Before I started, I purchased a nice Gigabit, Wireless-N Linksys router to use in my room. Routers ARE allowed at my school, but you have to disable the wireless portion of it. Within the first couple of weeks, I could an email from my school's Residential Internet dept. threatening to revoke my campus-wide internet if I didn't shut off the wireless. Obviously I listened and shut it off, and I hardwired the network (my roommate and I both had networked printers, and the wired network speeds were much faster). I turned it on once in a while if I needed to sync an iPhone app or share some files with someone in my room (during finals week a few weeks ago, the wireless network slowed to a crawl and I enabled it to provide people in my room with reliable internet).
Now, your situation might be different. I suggest you go to your school's IT dept and look at the policies and regulations. It also helps to talk to CURRENT students (not past). Usually the official stance is to not allow your own wireless routers, but the department may be lax about the rules. Just make sure you're smart about it; you don't want to be banned from your campus-wide internet/wifi.
Now I'm living off-campus in a condo and I'm glad I have a nice router to use, but most kids stay on campus where a router probably won't be useful.
As a side note, I got a job at my school's Residential IT dept, so I'm curious as to the methods they use to scan for networks.
Thanks for the responses guys. I just checked my school's (Penn State) website and it appears that they allow wireless routers in dorms 
I think I'll just opt for a WRT54GL router.
http://www.rescom.psu.edu/ResCom CD/html/wireless.htm
I think I'll just opt for a WRT54GL router.http://www.rescom.psu.edu/ResCom CD/html/wireless.htm
Thanks for the responses guys. I just checked my school's (Penn State) website and it appears that they allow wireless routers in dorms
http://www.rescom.psu.edu/ResCom CD/html/wireless.htm
I'll reiterate that you should wait until you're there to make sure there aren't 50 other networks you can bribe your way onto. Why buy and maintain a cheap router when somebody else can?