Out of country computers

Qweaver · June 11, 2008, 10:55:53 AM

We have friends coming from Australia to visit for a few weeks and they were wondering if their laptops will be able to connect to the internet thru our DSL wireless modem. I'm guessing that they will...but I'm not sure. Does anyone have any experience with this?

beenthere · June 11, 2008, 01:48:45 PM

They will probably work if you turn them over.... 8) 8)

PM to Husband or Wife. They would be able to fill you in on any problems....

Ianab · June 11, 2008, 05:07:32 PM

:D

No problems with the networking, just make sure they have a power supply that will run on 115V. Aus / NZ have 240v power. Some power packs will run on both, others are fixed voltage.

Ian

WDH · June 11, 2008, 11:01:07 PM

They probably will have to download your DSL software for it to work. With my DSL, I got a software disc. Did yours come with a set-up disc?

For my daughter's (from college) laptops and mine from work to connect, we had to load the software via the set-up disc. Then, it worked fine.

beenthere · June 12, 2008, 12:34:56 AM

WDH
Not sure why that was necessary. My DSL router has wireless, and my kids and grand kids come here (with their wireless laptops) and use the wireless connection, without loading any software. It just connects, no questions/problems or extra effort.

Maybe you have a restricted wireless signal from your router, and it requires a key to hook to it, that is in the software they have to load. ??

WDH · June 12, 2008, 07:31:57 AM

Before we had wireless, you had to hard connect to the DSL modem, and that required the software download. Now that we have wireless, it is like you said, if your computer is set up for wireless, you can connect without downloading the DSL modem software.

Wireless is wonderful ;D.

maestro · June 12, 2008, 07:53:51 PM

All hardware is the same whether you buy a computer in the USA or down under, keeps certain things simple that way. If you have wireless but don't have it secured then anyone who has wireless can access your internet connection. Down side to that is that ANYONE can access it and access any unprotected computer using it. You may want to think about securing your system if it's not already. With our wireless, I had to "allow" my laptop permission to use the connection and give it a code to do so. Not a big deal but keeps the neighbors from surfing on my dime (they wouldn't but you get what I mean)or bad guys from doing nasty things to my PC! As stated before, the power might be an issue but that should be it.

Warbird · June 12, 2008, 08:16:31 PM

This is not the original topic but... Running a non-secured wireless network in a populated area, in this day and age, is just asking for Mr FBI to knock on your door. Neighbors can utilize your connection to do Bad Things. When done right, guess what it looks like? It looks like you did those Bad Things.

Bad People also "war drive", searching for open wireless networks to abuse. Once they get connected to such a network, they can use it to download Really Bad Things, break into other systems, etc. Using insecure wireless networks makes them almost untraceable.

WPA encryption is your friend on a wireless router. If you need assistance locking down a network, start a different thread. I would be happy to help.

WDH · June 12, 2008, 09:06:07 PM

Good point on wireless security.

In my case, only the deer and rabbits pose a threat, and most of them are not computer literate. There is some value in not having neighbors.