What do you consider "outrageiously high" (sic)?

You might look for someone who advertises phone/computer cable installations.

Between $700 and $1000. Called 3 people.

Thanks for the tip.

Have you thought about WiFi? Install a wireless router after the DSL modem. The router and a card for the computer should be under $100.

Running cable through two stories of finished walls isn't always a picnic (nor inexpensive).

Mike

I have thought about wifi, but my main concern is security. I don't know anything about securing a wifi signal. I googled this once and got confused about encryption and wep and wap protocols. I'm sure I can handle the install of the router, but making sure that no one intercepts my credit card #'s or my passwords to my online banking is a big issue for me.

onward-
You can go online and find a 50 ft ethernet cable with connectors on both ends for under $20. I had the same situation as you. I just bought several long cables, cut a small hole in each wall where I wanted the cable end to be, and went up in the attic and drilled a hole in the top plate of each wall so I could drop the cable end down. After I pulled the end through the wall, I got a receptacle plate to cover the hole, and was done. I connected 3 computers to my main computer and I think that the cost to run 2-100ft cables and 1-50ft cable was under $100, plus my time. If I lived near you, I'd charge about $200 for labor for what you want done. Do it yourself and don't get taken to the cleaners.
If this is too much work for you, and you go wireless, it takes less than 5 minutes to set up security. I moved from my other house and now have a Belkin wireless router. After I got it configured, I called up tech support and had them walk me through the security settings. It's simple, and you can confirm that it's secured by just opening up your wireless network window.

Most wireless routers have a setup wizard that will step you through the security process. I'm using WEP which lets you set up 64 or 128 encryption with password access. You can set up a unique (user selected) wireless network ID known as your SSID. If you choose, this can be broadacast (visible to anyone from the outside) but they will need the WEP password key to get in. If you want to be even more secure, you can choose not to broadcast the SSID, then the person logging in has to know both your SSID and the password.

Much easier and cheaper than wired and you won't notice any difference in speed.

Kudzu, I've got a bad back so I'm not all that comfortable going up there and running wires. However, if I have a "good" day, I may end up taking the plunge.

Irishbrewer, I've done a little more digging on this router that I've been given by Verizon. It is dual wireless and ethernet. According to a chap at verizon, I have been set up at 64 encryption with my laptop. This router can go to 128 and, according to its .pdf manual, also offers WPA and unique ssid. I spoke to a tech guy in my office and he said that he would only recommend "WPA security, router password, unique SSID" for financial transactions via wireless.

If you do a wireless search for hotspots in my neighborhood with any laptop, my current router comes up with a "lock" and has a name like "AH123." Is this "AH123" the unique SSID? Also, the pw that i use is from a sticker on the back of this router. Also, the router name was given to me by verizon. I'm pretty sure I can change it along with the password.

I guess what I'm asking is how hard it would be to go to WPA? Or, maybe is my current router setup ok for doing online banking and the like?

Sorry about this long post. Too many questions...

Any WiFi security scheme can be cracked. It's just a matter of the cracker having enough time. It doesn't even require programming; the cracking programs are downloadable.

From what I've read, not broadcasting the SSID doesn't slow the script kiddies to any appreciable degree. It takes them much longer to crack WAP than WEP, though.

IMO, the best defense against crackers is to have a good house setback and a low power router, so they're out of range. I would never use WiFi in an apartment building or cluster housing.

I have had a local audio shop send a home theater installer to run a new thermostat wire thru a tricky in-wall run that took the wire across the house and down two floors. That was ~ $100 for 1 1/2 hrs of time, if I recall correctly. I have also been utterly amazed at what security system installers can do with fish tape and those long, flexy drill bits. I gave a home security crew a twenty to move a coax cable when they wired my house. These are two options that are perhaps long shots since they are outside the norm for these companies, but it's worked for me.

As far as the wireless option, you may want to check a source other than the Electrical WIRING forum for decent discussion. :-) The bottom line on that is use WPA Personal or WPA2 with an ugly password and you will be way beyond the reach of anyone who doesn't have it in for you big time and a lot of time to kill. The rest - SSID broadcast, MAC filtering, etc are just good practice despite being easy to circumvent. Google for methods of making a password ugly enough for WPA.

Here is a link that might be useful: A good place to start for wireless info

If you really want to get into wireless, the best place I've found for help and info is (are?) the forums at DSLReports.

WPA is very simple setup with the action tech routers - I assume thats what you've got.

Wifi connection really isn't a issue where you have Secure Web pages. Which all online banking certainly should be. Credit card transactions at most places will be on secure pages too. Some small bicycle shop or other small guy that does his own website coding may have brainlessly not paid extra for secure server and used secure pages.

Even if your neighbors were intercepting your wireless browsing, they won't be able to read anything done on secure pages. Its all super encrypted.
The security between the browser and secure pages is so good you're covered irregardlessly wifi or not.

Main reason for WEP or WPA, the wifi security, is keep the neighbor or passerby out of your network and off your connection.

mikie is right, your credit card and bank info should be secure even without WEP or WPA. As it is, that only encrypts the data between the wireless device and the router. Once the data is outside they house and unencrypted there would be plenty of opportunity for someone to snoop on the contents. Most people secure their wireless just to keep others from using it. That can also be accomplished by using MAC filtering. Each ethernet and 802.11 device has a unique identifiyer programmed into the controller chip. Home routers have a MAC filtering option where you can list known MAC addresses an only devices on the list will be assigned IP addresses.

If you really want physical cable, you should be able to run it yourself. it really is pretty easy.

HomePlug is also an option.
It's no new wires and virtually
as secure as a hardwired network.

HTH
Chris

Here is a link that might be useful: Home networking

Any competent handyman should be able to run ethernet cable for you.

Thanks for all the great responses. With wireless, my only concern is that I have to pay for something online or log in to my bank and someone can "intercept" my numbers as they are going from the router to my computer. I'm not that worried about someone using my broadband, although I can see how there can be some abuse there.

From what you've said, esp sid 79, I'm ok with my 64 bit wep setup, huh? Everytime I pay with a credit card and transmit secure info, I make sure I get that lock on the bottom right of my browser. I do have an actiontec router.

Think there is a default wep key written on the bottom of that router. You could just buy a usb wife dongle and there you go... windows pops a message window asking which router to connect to and asks for the key.

But its easy to change the router to WPA and use a longer passphrase so no one ever can access your network but you.

Wep, any pre/teen worth his salt knows where to download the cd to auto jump on your connection in a couple minutes or moments/seconds with experience.

So, did you change the login and password on that wireless modem/router? Or you think the teen next door already has his on it?

With regard to setting up passwords, keep in mind that there will be a password to login to your wireless router that you should change to something other than the default. Also, there are WEP/WPA keys that are passwords that need to be established when setting up that particular security protocall.

The router password is key because as mikie says, if someone can log into your router, they have access to all the security settings and they can lock you out of your own system. In the unlikely circumstance that such an event happened (it is probably more likely that you forgot the router password that you established when setting it up), you can reset to factory defaults using the router reset button. See your manual to find out how this works - you may have to hold a button in for 5 seconds to reset to factory defaults.

Some routers can be configured to restrict administrative logins to hardwired terminals. This is an excellent security measure.

WPA can be cracked. It's just a matter of time. The cracker has to be able to monitor your network's traffic for quite a while. Usually he will keep hitting your router with random packets to generate traffic.

The shorter your password, the easier it is for the cracker. A word that's in the dictionary is trivial to crack - it's been done in 3 minutes. But if you use long hex numbers or random nonsense characters rather than words and phrases, cracking becomes much more difficult. The time required becomes so long that the cracker will probably go looking for easier pickings elsewhere. There are plenty of people who are careless enough to use their routers' default security setup, despite the big bold-print warnings in the manuals telling them to set up security RIGHT NOW.

i agree with davidr, goto dslreports.com and check out the wireless forum. I am a MVM at that site, and the users there KNOW their stuff.

your router has built in wireless, is it enabled now? if so, you could be open as we speak. my ex wife got a laptop last year and has not paid for internet since then. she just drives until she gets signal, then sits and surfs. her last house she stole bandwidth from teh neighbors. if she had bad intentions, she could have gotten any number of other things as well.

secure your wireless.

and as to the "tech" who only recommended security for financial transactions, what the heck does he think checking your bank account and paying CC bills are? ALL wireless connections should be locked down tighter than dick's hatband. hopefully soon the industry will ship with strong security and random passwords, but until the general public understands networking better this won't happen.