If your present router is secure, you need not worry about whatever
hangs off the end. Just as your provider does not concern itself about
your equipment nor your neighbors equipment, you need not worry about
whatever router security hangs off your present router. Thus, just give
the WiFi a good secure password, configure your various relatives
equipment when they visit and leave your present secure system alone.
When the visitors leave, unplug.

Larry

In article ,
Kevin McMurtrie wrote:

In article ,
Jim Thompson
wrote:

In the annual run-up to Christmas, Thompson-style... scheduled to
accommodate grandchildren in college, meeting the fiancee of the
oldest granddaughter, out-of-state grandchildren, and prosecutors who
had "murder duty" on the 25th, we'll celebrate Christmas this year on
Saturday, the 29th.

The first arrival, 11 years old, from Palm Springs, asked, "Opa, Do
you have WiFi? I need my WiFi!" ;-)

Presently I have a Linksys 8-port router, since I wired the house with
CAT-5 as it was being built, 19 years ago, never thinking wireless.

I have a few spare ports on the Linksys.

What should I get as WiFi, considering the following...

House is essentially 65' x 65', so I need good range. But I can
easily locate transponder 8-10' off the floor.

How do I set it up so grandchildren can access the web, but not
intrude on any of my PC's? Already had the wife's PC's E-mail fouled
up by the 5-year-old :-(

...Jim Thompson

I'm having good luck with a Linksys E4200. Isolation is depends on your
equipment.

* If you have a NAT/router, it can probably serve multiple subnets.
Change all of your existing network clients to use a static IP address
rather than DHCP. For simplicity, the static address can be the DHCP
address they have now. Now on the NAT/router, change DHCP to give out
addresses for different subnet. Any device that pops itself onto the
network via DHCP won't see your other gear until it is manually assigned
an address in the other subnet. The WiFi can operate in bridged mode so
there's nothing on it to configure. I'm not sure if this is secure
enough for an 11 year old.

* More secure solutions are available if you replace your existing
router with the Linksys E4200 or another device that supports WiFi guest
networks. The guest WiFi account runs on a separate LAN from everything
else. WiFi routers don't have much LAN-WAN bandwidth so it's not a good
idea for very fast connections. Trying to get more bandwidth from this
configuration means you'd need to mess with SOHO routers. "SOHO" is
networking term describing a product that is completely FUBAR and has no
hope of working correctly. It might just blow smoke when plugged in.

* This problem is trivial if you're given multiple IP addresses from
your ISP. Set up the WiFi as an independent router and plug it into a
WAN jack