About two weeks ago, I wrote here
about self-installing Comcast HSI, and a wireless router connection for my daugher at her college apartment. I did that this past Friday. Comcast arrived as scheduled, extended existing coax to where I needed it, and dropped off the self-install kit. Once I connected my daughter's laptop to the modem (RCA DCM425C), and launched her browser, I was presented with a Comcast welcome screen, and instructed to "Click here" to install the Comcast software and configure my account. Instead, I called Comcast and configured my account over the phone, and was online in about 15 minutes. Once I had the Comcast HSI working fine, I installed a wireless router.
I'm new to wireless, so I have some questions...
My daughter has an Inspiron 8600 running Windows XPHome, with an Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 BG network card. She is using a D-link 524 802.11 g wireless router (revision c). Before enabling any security features of the router, the Wireless Network Connection icon in the systems tray showed Speed:54.0 Mbps, and Signal Strength: Excellent. After enabling
64-bi WEP, the speed dropped to 5.4 Mbps, but the signal strength still showed excellent.
Also, after enabling WEP, the wireless card icon in my system tray indicates a poor connection, even though my throughupt seems to be just fine, and surfing is ok. (I suppose that's because I'm still capable of speeds higher than I'd get from Comcast, anyway?). For instance, the two icons in the system tray show: Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 BG Network Connection : POOR Wireless Network Connection (my network name): Speed 5.5 Mbps Signal Strength: Excellent Status: Connected How is it that the NIC can show POOR, while the signal strength shows Excellent? And how is it that the signal strenght can show Excellent, but the speed is 5.5 Mbps? Could this be because enabling WEP can greatly slow down speed, even though the signal is strong. The Dlink manual states: "Note: Your network will slow down and wireless signal may degrade when enabling encryption due to the added overhead." If this is true, I'm really disappointed, since the speed did indicate
54.0 Mbps before I enabled WEP. I have to use encryption, so does this mean I'll have to accept only 10% of the speeds I got without WEP?
Next I'll try enabling MAC filtering, and disabling SSID. What should I expect when I do this? I don't anticipate slower speeds still when SSID is disabled, but will enabling MAC filtering slow me down more?
Thanks for any clarification, Bruce