Concerned about Identity Theft?
Internet Security Worries?

WiFirescue.co.uk
Tel:0800 1214670

Router Upgrade

Ł26.99* Less 20% prepay

What do we do for the Money?

Our qualified computer network engineer will visit your home or office and evaluate your equipment and your connection to the internet via your existing wireless router and determine your current level of system vulnerability and will advise if a router upgrade is required.

We would not automatically undertake this work unless you requested us to do so upon our engineers visit and we would not supply the new Router. The Wi Fi Rescue cost involved here is purely in the installation and configuration of your new router if required.

Overview

Your wireless router creates a network that all your PCs can use to access a single broadband connection. We would install a new router to act as a junction box that joins your network together. The router connects to your broadband line through a modem which will be built into the router, and each of your PCs connects to the router either wirelessly or, if it happens to be in the same place as the router, through one of its wired ports. Your PC must have a wireless network adaptor. Most laptops now have one built in.

We would install your new router but the kind of router you should buy depends on your broadband connection and your existing hardware. If you have a cable modem with an Ethernet port, you can use this with your new router. If you have any kind of ADSL modem – that means any broadband connection via a phone line, rather than a cable installation such as NTL or Telewest – then we recommend that you bin it and buy a router with an ADSL modem built in, it is a lot easier to set up and costs hardly any more.

We will consider which wireless standard you want your router (and all your wireless adaptors) to support. It’s important that all your devices conform to a common standard, of which there are several. The faster the standard your kit supports, the better the speed you’ll get. This is most significant when you use your wireless network to transfer data between your own PCs, because this can potentially reach much higher speeds than Internet access.

The 802.11b and 802.11g WiFi standards use frequencies in the 2.4GHz band. The older ‘b’ standard runs at 11 megabits per second (Mbit/s), while the newer ‘g’ standard runs at 54Mbit/s. As they both use the same frequencies, ‘b’ and ‘g’ devices can communicate with each other, but only at the slower speed of the ‘b’ devices. If possible, you should use only ‘g’ devices in your network.

The next standard to use the 2.4GHz band will be called 802.11n and will run at 100Mbit/s.

There is one other wireless network standard, 802.11a, which runs at 54Mbit/s, like 802.11g. Instead of the 2.4GHz frequency band, it uses frequencies clustered around 5GHz. Because of this, ‘a’ products can’t communicate with other types of wireless networking devices and are best avoided.

We recommend that you buy an 802.11g router. 802.11b routers aren’t much cheaper and are increasingly hard to find. If your PC has a ‘b’ adaptor built in, it’ll work with your ‘g’ router, but you might consider upgrading it to get the fastest speeds possible.

To find out which standards an existing wireless adaptor supports, go to System Properties. In the Hardware tab, open Device Manager and expand the Network adaptors section. If your WiFi card has just a letter ‘b’ at the end of its name, it conforms to the 802.11b standard; if it has ‘bg’, it’s a ‘g’ adaptor.

The best routers offer greater speed and range than budget models. Any router will usually mange to connect to devices within a small to medium-sized house, but if you want to browse the web at the bottom of the garden, consider a pricier router that uses MIMO technology. Rather than a single aerial, a MIMO router can have anything between two and seven. At any given moment, atmospheric conditions, interference and other factors mean that some of these aerials receive a better signal than others. MIMO continually shifts the load to whichever aerials work best at the time. In our experience, MIMO routers have a much greater range.

For an extra burst of speed, look for a router with a ‘turbo’ mode. These typically run at up to 108Mbit/ s. The catch is that, because they’re non-standard versions of 802.11g that manufacturers have enhanced in different ways, you must buy your network adaptors and router from the same manufacturer.

Network Security

We will ensure that we leave your wireless network secured, otherwise anyone within range who has a WiFi-equipped PC will be able to use your broadband line, and if they were so inclined they might even be able to gain access to your files. Although it may seem unlikely that you’ll be targeted by a local hacker, ‘bandwidth stealing’ is very common and can even happen without your neighbours realising they’re using your connection.

The most common WiFi encryption standard is Wireless Protected Access (WPA). Most routers support this; it’s easy to set up and very secure. However, only Windows XP Service Pack 2 supports WPA natively. If any of your PCs lacks SP2 or has an older version of Windows, we will make sure the software with its WiFi adaptor allows WPA. A new standard, WPA2, is even more secure, but isn’t so widely supported yet.

Our engineer will set your router to let you hide the name of your network (its SSID) so that you can connect to it but snoopers won’t see it. You should also be able to limit network access to specified WiFi adaptors using a feature called MAC address filtering or authentication. A MAC address is a unique ID given to each network device when it’s made. If only your own PCs, specified by the MAC addresses of their WiFi adaptors, are allowed on your network, it’s harder for intruders to get in. If you have cable broadband, your router may also need to support MAC address spoofing.

Our engineers will enable your router to act as a DHCP server. This means it can hand out network settings, such as IP addresses, automatically to any PC or other device you add

Book an Engineer to Visit

PREPAYMENT AT BOOKING WOULD ENTITLE YOU TO A 20% DISCOUNT** ON THE PRICES QUOTED.