Lan cable vs wifi

[ghworker2010]

An apartment Im thinking of moving into is only providing LAN cable. A week ago the guy emailed me and said that 'yes, we have wifi'. Today when I visited the room again and asked to test the wifi I was told there is only LAN cable.

The person showing me the room didnt speak very good English and my thai is not the best.

Thus, I ask if anyone can comment on the LAN cable internet. Is it faster than wifi? The only disadvantage for me is in cases where I want to sit on the balcony with my laptop and thus unable to do so assuming the length of my cord might be letting me down.

Any comments are appreciated as Ive never used LAN before

[dharmabm]

A cable will always be faster than WiFi, particularly in a building with shared internet (maybe some exceptions to that, but generally true). You might be able to setup your own WiFi router depending on the infrastructure, but would need more info to advise on that

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus SlimKat using Tapatalk

Edited February 25, 2014 by dharmabm

[bangkokrick]

Virtual Router – open source software designed to ease the process of setting up wifi connection. It does not require any configuration to make a virtual WiFi spot. If you want to share a wired Internet connection through WiFi, Virtual Router is exactly what you need. It does not matter if you are an experienced PC user or a newbie, the intuitive design makes everything easy to understand so you will not encounter any problems while using this app.

http://virtual-router.joydownload.com/&c=9?gclid=CP7N_rSs57wCFWRV4godVSoAdQ

I use this turn utilse my LAN as a WIFI connection and its free.

[dharmabm]

But you need 2 computers to use this, don't you? a wireless router is a lot cheaper than a 2nd computer.

edit - plus, this claims to be open source and yet there is no link to the source code. don't get me wrong, i am sure it works for you - but there are several programs that can turn your wifi chip into a hotspot, but i wouldn't personally trust anything with no documentation and no support without first downloading and installing it. but that's just me...

Edited February 25, 2014 by dharmabm

[Gregory Morozov]

You can buy that for 600-800 baht, pretty much plug-and-play unit:
http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?categoryid=3143&model=TL-WR700N

[RandomSand]

Just buy a wireless router for your apartment. Less than THB1000.

You will plug-in the LAN cable into the WAN/LAN socket. The router will, from the LAN cable, receive an IP address via DHCP or you type in a fixed address.

Let's say that you get a 192.168.x.x address... then for simplicity you'd create a second network using the 10.x.x.x addressing for your private wi-fi network.

https://www.arin.net/knowledge/address_filters.html

-Network address range-
-Default subnet mask-

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
255.0.0.0

192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255
255.255.0.0

Edited February 25, 2014 by RandomSand

[bino]

I agree with the poster above that cable will almost always be faster than WiFi.

However, if you really want the freedom of movement, you can get a wireless router like this for 700 baht and plug it into the building WiFi.

http://www.invadeit.co.th/product/wireless-networking/d-link/wireless-n150-cloud-router-dir-600l-p010238/

[bangkokrick]

I tend to use this with my smart phone taking the WIFI signal from the LAN on the main computer. Its a cheap option, but as others have suggested buying a router would be the best bet if you want to use your laptop.

[RandomSand]

Top Tip (if buying a router)...

If the building's networking gear is not enterprise/ISP grade hardware, small probe packets that the internet needs to work 100% correctly will be filtered out (by the buildings cheap hardware).

Therefore it would be best to set on conservative MTU size on your WAN/Building-LAN interface. Something like 1400 Bytes should be okay.

Ironically; If you turn on the firewall on your cheap home router, it will *also* not reply to your computers requests for information on the correct MTU size to be used... so, you'd have to set the (same) MTU size on your CPU too!

Unfortunately; I can't find a way to set the MTU on my Android device, myself. Is this why Skype goes sometimes goes nuts when using my home network, I wonder ?

Edited February 25, 2014 by RandomSand

[Chicog]

Unfortunately; I can't find a way to set the MTU on my Android device, myself. Is this why Skype goes sometimes goes nuts when using my home network, I wonder ?

It would appear you can do it through a Terminal emulator on a rooted phone, e.g. ifconfig wlan0 mtu 1440

but it isn't permanent.

[RandomSand]

Unfortunately; I can't find a way to set the MTU on my Android device, myself. Is this why Skype goes sometimes goes nuts when using my home network, I wonder ?

It would appear you can do it through a Terminal emulator on a rooted phone, e.g. ifconfig wlan0 mtu 1440

but it isn't permanent.

Thanks for that.

[DogNo1]

If you do not have wireless in your building, you will have to buy a wireless router to plug your LAN cable into. It will have 2-3 LAN ports on it so that you can connect your laptop to it with a cable when you're in the room and then remove the cable and connect by WiFi when you're on your balcony. Absolutely the simplest solution, if you don't mind the clumsiness, is to buy a generously long cable that will reach out to your balcony. A ten to twelve meter cable should do it. Cables are not expensive. Incidentally, the TL-WR700N is a repeater. You would need an existing wireless connection in your building to use it.

[fritzzz25]

Get the ASUS Multi Mode Pocket Router (WL-330NL). Ultra compact, connects to the end of a LAN cable. Extremely portable. I used one in my hotels that had only a hard wired LAN cable to make my own wifi network. Worked great!

[Gregory Morozov]

Get the ASUS Multi Mode Pocket Router (WL-330NL). Ultra compact, connects to the end of a LAN cable. Extremely portable. I used one in my hotels that had only a hard wired LAN cable to make my own wifi network. Worked great!

WL-330NL is USB powered, not exactly convenient. The TPLink I recommended earlier is basically a wall-wart with a LAN socket.

[Chicog]

Unfortunately; I can't find a way to set the MTU on my Android device, myself. Is this why Skype goes sometimes goes nuts when using my home network, I wonder ?

It would appear you can do it through a Terminal emulator on a rooted phone, e.g. ifconfig wlan0 mtu 1440

but it isn't permanent.

Thanks for that.

I'd be interested to hear if it solves the problem, for future reference.

Cheers.

[Dork]

Get the ASUS Multi Mode Pocket Router (WL-330NL). Ultra compact, connects to the end of a LAN cable. Extremely portable. I used one in my hotels that had only a hard wired LAN cable to make my own wifi network. Worked great!

Totally agree with you, they're great little devices. Since I keep leaving them in hotel rooms I've bought a few of them. Have a look at the replacement for that model here http://www.invadeit.co.th/product/wireless-networking/asus/all-in-one-wireless-n-pocket-router-wl-330nul-p015652/. It's the size of a small cigarette lighter but has all the functions of a full fledged router and then some.

I got one recently and think it's the best THB1250 I've ever spent on anything IT. In Sydney last week, after paying $300/night for a hotel room the thieves charge another $20 for wifi access and then limit you to one device. With this magic little thing I could share that paid connection to as many devices as I liked.

Edit: Sorry, I've just realised that you are probably talking about this model. I had thought you were talking about the older model WL-330N as opposed to the WL-330NUL.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Dork