You won't be able to use the internet connection you have at home when you travel. That is going to be the case if you switch to cable as well. If you stay at hotels, most hotels have high speed access now. Some charge, but most are free. Many coffee shops, libraries, etc have high speed access. Some charge, but some are free (there's an Arby's and a Burger King within a few blocks of my house that both offer free high speed access). If you use "hot spots" like those, make sure you have good firewall, spyware and virus protection installed.

Another option for travel is to get service from a cell phone company. You'll probably need to pay about $100 or so for the device to connect and somewhere in the $30-$60 per month range for access, so it is only a good deal if you travel a lot.

what kind of wireless set up do you currently have in your house?

I have wireless high speed (up to 768kb) with Adams Networks, Inc. I have a Linskys 4 port wired router. There's an upright box with flashing green lights next to the router and on a shelf up higher a rather chintzy one that I thought pulled in the "signal". I know that's not very technical but I'm not sure what else you mean. My DH says I should just take the old router and my laptop to Adams and let them figure it out. If I purchased a wireless router like one I saw at Tiger Direct, a Linskys WRT54G2 would I be able to connect it myself? Just what would I have to do? Or would I be smarter to let my server take care of it. Mlou51

Sounds as if your router is not wireless but strictly wired. If you purchase the Linksys or a Netgear or any other WIRELESS router, you should be able to set it up yourself. I set mine up with my satellite modem. The router goes between the modem and the computer. I have it wired to my desktop via ethernet and use the wireless for my laptop. I can use the laptop anywhere in the house. There were very easy to follow directions with my Netgear router, and I'm sure Linksys has good directions also.

Hi, mlou_51...

grandms is correct that most wireless routers are fairly easy to setup. I know the Linksys comes with very good instructions, both the quick guide and the users manual. And, it has a cd for doing the setup.

Basically, you would just replace your wired router with the wireless one. You can use the enclosed cd to help set up the new router. I'm presuming you would not want to set it up manually.

After you follow the instructions from the cd, including, I believe the security settings, you should be able to go on-line.

Of course, you can pay 75 for your time. The tech will set up everything and is responsible for ensuring it is working properly.

I can only guess what happened in your house two years
ago. I don't know what the installation agreement was between Adams Networking and you. But, I would bet that the wired router was included in the installation. A wireless router would probably have been an additional $50-100.

Even if they had put in a wireless router two years ago,
today it would probably work okay. But, it would be slow by today's standards. I suspect you would not be pleased.

So, the bottom line is you can install yourself and presuming everything works, you will be pleased and proud.

Whether you do it yourself, or someone else installs it, you will enjoy the freedom to use your laptop anywhere around your house.

Additionally, as bpgreen said, you should be able to connect at some coffee houses, hotels, and some fast food places. Take a LAN cable and you can connect to wired outlets when available.

Hope this helps,
:-)
--majickmann

I think I understand now. Adams Networks gave you a fixed wireless account. You can connect to the router (which then connects to the device that connects to the Adams wireless network). You'll need a wireless router or switch to connect your laptop to the network inside your house, and you won't have access outside of your house.

In your case, the wireless internet connection is that you're connecting to Adams with a wireless connection, but it's sort of a dedicated connection that can then be routed to and shared by computers on your network.

Since you currently only have a wired router, you have two choices. You can drop wire throughout the house or you can get a wireless router (or switch). Most wireless routers have wired ports as well, so you can probably replace the current router with a new one. One caveat is that your current router may have login information, so if you replace it, you'd need to set up the new one correctly. If that is how you're set up, it might be easier to simply plug the new wireless router into the existing router.

Another caveat is that depending on where you locate the wireless router, how big your house is, how much interference there is (2.4 ghz phones can cause problems for example) you may find that there are dead spots in the house. In my house, there's a dead spot in my daughter's bedroom, but the rest of the house is fine.

It's possible that when you visit your family, they'll have high speed access and wireless connectivity (it's becoming very common) and you'll be able to use their connection.

thanks everyone! I think I understand a bit better now. Sam is off next week and I'm going to have him take the laptop and old router to Adams and have them do the configuring, it should only cost us the wireless router that way. Mlou51

Sam bought me a Netgear RangeMax Wireless-N router. I called my server and got the IP address and other stuff I needed and got it going. So the desktop is connected but when I turned on the laptop it said there was a problem connecting to the internet and downloading new content. What else am I supposed to do to get laptop connected? Mlou51

You probably need to turn on the network card on your laptop. I visited the Toshiba website and found some basic wireless netwok troubleshooting. Here is an excerpt from the site as well as the link you need.

"For Toshiba computers with an internal Wi-Fi adapter, verify that the Wi-Fi power switch is ON. On all Toshiba portables that have a built-in Wi-Fi card (rather than a PC Card) the right-most LED (front of the computer) should be lit when the Wi-Fi power switch is on. This LED will be next to an antenna icon (waves radiating from it). Some Toshiba models have this physical switch whether or not the internal Wi-Fi adapter is installed. To determine whether or not a particular computer has an internal Wi-Fi adapter, check the device list in Device Manger (part of the Windows Control Panel). Another good clue is the presence or absence or a "Wi-Fi" sticker on the underside of the computer."

Hope the info helps!
Pam

Here is a link that might be useful: General Wi-Fi / network troubleshooting tips

There should be some basics in your user manual for wireless hookup