What Im looking to do:
Hook up 2 computers (one upstairs and one down) and my xbox live.

1) Is wireed networking significantly faster than normal networking?
2) Can't you get special adapters and have your network only give info through those (to prevent network hacking)?
3) With wireless networking would you have to buy adapters for each computer - I think some wireless routers require it.
4) If I would need those how would that work with xbox live?
5) Any other info on these sorts of products or if there is any you want to suggest?

I use adelphia.net isp & when it connects it says its connected at 100 mbs but it more like 3-6 mbs through a browser...

Also, odds are that im not going to be worried about data theift or network hacking because I live in a fairly remote area around mostly old people.

I don't know much about xbox live, so see if anyone else can answer those questions related to it.

If you are only talking about transferring data inside your own network (computer to computer), then yes, wired is faster that wireless. Wired goes at 100mbps and wireless will depend on what hardware you are using.

Don't know of any special adapters that will limit what you can send out. I don't think such a thing exists. Might have to do it software-wise.

Wireless networking will require a wireless card for each computer. You can get a PCI wireless card or one of those USB wireless adapters if you don't like opening up your computer.

The speed you go online at will depend on your ISP. In your case you said 3-6mbps. So that's the highest speed you can get through the internet (surfing, downloading, etc.). But inside your network if you want to send a file over to another computer connected to your router, it should be 100mbps (over wire line). Sending data to another computer using wireless will vary depending if you are using 802.11b/g or whatever other wireless types out there. 802.11b will give you 11mbps and 802.11g will give you 54mbps. They do have like an "extended" version of 802.11g now which supposedly transfer speeds up to 108mbps through your network (not internet).

i would suggest you get a wired network, no offense but from reading your post you dont know much about LAN, and a wired network is plug n play. you can get a wireless game adaper for your xbox, im not sure how much they cost though. To prevent hacking, i have neard heard off such a deive, hence the creation of the firewall. I use sygate, it is free just look it up at www.tucows.com

This is what I have, and it sounds somewhat similar to your setup.

I have 2 xbox's one in the bedroom and one in the living room.
the reason for 2 is that I have them modded and I use Xbox media center to play content from my dvr in the living room to my bedroom tv when my wife and I cannot find anything on tv at night.
The Living room one has the same setup, but is used to play games. (sadly we use it as a SMS and NES machine through emulators)

Both xboxs are hooked up to a wired network. Cat 5 run throughout the house to the router downstairs.
2 computers in the office, 1 gaming machine and 1 graphics workstation. both wired to the router in the basement as well.

1 laptop in the office which is wireless. the wireless is hooked up to the wired router with a 172.x network and the wired is 10.x this defines the networks and helps to keep prying eyes away from the wired portion.

I originally looked into moving the xbox's off wired and onto wireless, but the cost drove me away.
They are $100 a pop for the wireless gaming network adaptors from microsoft/linksys.

I use the netgear prosafe line of routers as they support up to 10 VPN tunnels and have a decent SPI firewall.
I just got an old nokia firewall im gonna hook up sometime this week in front of the network as a 1st line of defense. But the kicker is, all 172.x traffic must have a vpn to get to my 10.x network.

I would really suggest sticking with wired for your xbox just for the cost alone, if you already have a wired network, dont shell out the money for wireless just for an xbox.

You can always bring the cat 5 up where your CATV or Phone comes up as well, makes installation a breeze.

Good luck

- C

This post has been edited by DjCalvin: May 1 2006, 01:51 PM

1 - wired is way better then wireless. Much faster and no connection losses however it includes loads of wires trailing around if you have a few comps and other equipment

2 - You could just not connect the internet to that network so that it would be impossible for someone outside your network to access your equipment.

3 - With wireless you would have to buy either Usb wireless modules or pci (in-built) or (pcmcia for laptop) cards which go inside the computer

4 - Not sure about this one !!!

5 - I'm useless at suggesting products as I'll end up suggessting a really bad one so I'll leave it at there....



Hope this helps



Saf