Once I got the Broadband I wanted to set up a combination LAN/WIFI wireless network to allow any computer or laptop to connect to the Broadband connection and also allow working from anywhere in the house as well as the office.
Materials:
Patch lead or CAT5 Cable & Connectors.
1 Wireless access point.
1 hub or switch.
1 Broadband connection.
This is the order of things as I did it.
The wireless broadband company, MaintsBB supplied and fitted me with an aerial with a panel that had a DHCP router built in to it but the Wireless Access point that I had (DWL - 900AP+ from D-Link, I've had it a while now waiting for broadband from Eircom which hasn't materialised) actually has a DHCP router built in as well so either would have done the job. Their cable terminates in a little black box which is connected to a power supply and also has a CAT5 cable coming out to connect to a computer. This is the broadband connection. The guys from MAINTS had connected the broadband to one computer and they made sure that everything was working perfectly before they left. If you're in the area that served by this system please contact them for broadband, they're great and give you all the assistance you could possibly ask for. (one of them spent half an hour in a ridiculously tight space under the office bringing across the cables to keep them tidy).
THE HARDWARE SETUP:
I plugged the cheap hub I had bought from PCWORLD. (Linksys 5 point ethernet hub) into the mains and fired it up.
The CAT5 cable from the little black box from MAINTS (the broadband connection) went into one of the LAN connector ports on the hub.
I made up a CAT5 patch lead from two CAT5 Lan connectors and a piece of CAT5 cable and linked the main desktop on the office to another port on the hub. These cables are cheap in PCWORLD or anywhere similar but I had the stuff lying around to make it up anyway.
This particular computer does not have wireless built in but has a LAN connection port in the back.
Wireless access point was then plugged into the mains and connected to the hub using the CAT5 cable in the box.
That was all the hardware dealt with, it was time to move on to the setup.
THE SOFTWARE SETUP:
I accessed the WAP by typing in the default IP address given in the setup instructions into Firefox and the setup routine came up on screen in my browser.
NOTE: (Before I could access the WAP I had to temporarily change the IP address of the computer connected to it through the hub from "DHCP" manually to one in the same range as the WAP . If you have to do this then please remember to return the IP settings of this computer to use DHCP settings after setup of the WAP completes).
Run through the setup/installation routine and change the default IP address of the WAP to one in the same range as those from the DHCP router on the Panel. Different WAP's probably have different ways of doing this, look at the instructions for help.
Make sure to turn the DHCP router of the wireless access point OFF to prevent conflicts with the DHCP server on the panel from MaintsBB.
The DHCP on the aerial panel gives out IP addresses ending in the range XXX.XXX.XXX.100-XXX.XXX.XXX.200 so Paul from Maints advised me to manually set the WAP to an IP in the same range ending with anything from XXX.XXX.XXX.0-XXX.XXX.XXX.99 to prevent any conflicts afterwards.
You could set the WAP to use DHCP and download its IP address automatically but If you don't set the IP address of the WAP manually, it makes it harder to find it later to change any of the settings if you have to.
Set up encryption and encryption keys in the WAP by following instructions in the setup wizard.
After setup completes, The WAP reboots to the new IP address so return the IP of the computer used to set it up to DHCP and click on "repair connection" otherwise you won't be able to connect to anything with that computer.
VOILA, The wifi access was up and running and I could access the WAP from the computer connected to the Hub by cable.
Everything else, (Laptops and Pocket PC) is connecting to the WAP without any hassle apart from giving them security encryption keys. Ensure that the IP settings of each of the computers connecting to the network either by cable or WIFI are set to use DHCP, and they will automatically receive IP addresses from the DHCP server. If they don't have a wifi connection built in they could be connected to the hub with a LAN cable (Providing they have a LAN port of course) but set them again to DHCP.
Total setup took about half an hour, 5 minutes crimping cables and the rest mostly typing in the encryption keys and settings.
If you're setting a network up from scratch (I had a small network up and running before the sharing had to be setup so there was less work involved) you will have to set up the computers using the network setup wizard (Providing one of them has Windows XP) . This is different depending on whether it's cable or WIFI connected but it's very easy to do in Win XP. You don't need to do this if you only want to share the broadband connection but if you want to share files or printers from computer to computer across the network or do multiplayer gaming across the network then you will.
