Wifi and ethernet connections can I have both at once?

[1978scotty]

My first experience with wi fi left me asking the question why did I even bother, and I had no regrets moving back to a cable connection.

However time has moved on and so have I. I am in a new house and replacing the desk top with a laptop and replacing the TV too.

I want to go wireless and have not settled on a provider so I dont know what type of gizmo I will recieve but, the new Sony and Panasonic LCDs have ethernet connections so would I be able to have a constant connection to a TV and also broadcast a wi fi signal to the laptop without problems?

 

[The_Lhc]

Yes. Whatever wireless router you get is probably going to have 4 wired ports, it'll support that many wired connections plus a couple of dozen wireless connections without too much trouble.

For example at work we have an ADSL line to get to our company email (we're on a customer site so can't get to our own network via the WAN), we have a 4 port wireless router with an 8 port switch attached, with all ports used up, plus people connecting wirelessly, in total between 20 to 25 users, depending on who's in. That router copes fine, even with me watching the snooker from the BBC's website (not that ever would do that whilst at work of course...)!

 

[John Duncan]

One word of warning - you may get a rubbish 'access point' instead of a proper router, and if so it would be worth your while replacing it with a proper belkin or netgear one. Disadvanage of this is that you may (depending on your provider - I'm talking to you, Virgin) need to have the MAC address of that router registered with their servers before it'll work.