[geeks] Cheap wireless APs

[Sheldon T. Hall]

quoth Phil Stracchino ...
 
> > You need a big house to need more than one access point... 
> 
> There's that.  But since I have another far more capable 
> router, I don't
> need a wireless router that makes me go through all kinds of hoops tp
> keep it from trying to be a router and a DHCP server and a 
> firewall.  I
> just want a dumb AP that'll be an AP and nothing else.

In France, we subscribed to Orange (France Telecom) for DSL service, and
they give you a modem/router with 2 Ethernet ports and a 802.11g WAP built
in.  They call it a "Livebox," and it's pretty much a POS.  In ours, the WAP
would drop connections every few hours, so I hooked up the only other piece
of network gear I had with me, some D-Link "cable router" thing.  It's got a
WAN Ethernet port, 4 LAN Ethernet ports, and WiFi.  You manage it with a
browser.  I just turned off the DHCP server in it, gave it a fixed address
on the LAN, and plugged stuff into its LAN ports.  As long as I don't use
the WAN port, and disable all the "router" stuff, it acts like a dumb switch
that also is a WAP.  Cheap, too.

-Shel