As they have pointed out above you could also buy a router yourself (LinkSys type or just a Wireless access point) and connect it to the box you already have. You probably are going to need some help to set it up. But Wireless Access Points are very cheap these days (20 or 30 euros) and it might be the way to go plus a wireless card for your new computer. Make sure you ask the vendor for the right cable to connect current box to new router. There are 2 types of ethernet cables - crossed and straigth - and you need to make sure you get the right one. Here is your setup

phone line <--> current box <--> new router <-- cable --> current computer
<wireless conn> new computer

£40 for 1 hours call out and travel from an IT Professional whos been in the game 10 years? Thats not expensive at all. Thats mates rates.

I used to work for a company that charged £120 an hour for call outs (to other businesses). Shame I didnt get that though!

They dont want a "wireless access point", they need a "Wireless ADSL Router"
The two are fundamentally different. If they got a wireless access point then theyd need to plug that into their existing computer via ethernet, with the ADSL modem on it, and install internet connection sharing. That PC would have to be switched on and connected to the internet before the other one would work.
With a "Wireless ADSL Router" the box itself has an adsl modem inside it and takes care with connecting to the internet. That way you can have the other PC switched off and the other one would still work. This saves on electricity. Its a far better solution. This is why people will pay £40+ an hour on getting things installed by experienced professionals.

My solution is:

Internet -> Wireless ADSL Router --------> All your PCs/Laptops/Smartphones.

Far better

I agree it´s not expensive. I can see you are moving to Spain and probably will need to make a living. You probably won´t have problems finding customers among small companies. That´ll be your natural market. The residential market is probably not worth even trying unless you want to set up a shop. Good luck!

Thats interesting. I have a pc and I was going to have a laptop downstairs when its finished and just assumed that with the Telefonica router I could have the PC plugged, and the laptop on wifi. You're telling me I might have problems with that?

It´s not better. It might be easier. If you don´t move your computer around I always prefer a cable connection. It´s 100 or even 1000 Mbps as compared to 54M for IEEE 803.11G shared among all the computers. So you´ll be lucky if you get 5 or 10 Mbs. For broad access is obviously more than enough but looking into the future if you set up a LAN to - for example - transfer high resolution video - it won´t be enough and then we´ll have to discuss the BIG ISSUE of Quality of Service, which is a fundamental issue. But let's not bore people with technical things.

You sound like a nice buy but somebody might interpret your words as cocky. Don´t go that way. These days is very hard to know who is at the other end of the conversation. It could easily be an I+D engineer who knows the field because he had a part in creating it.

No. I am telling you that in my house sometimes my visiting kids have troubles connecting from the 2nd floor to the wireless router in the third floor and the connection we get is at most 2 MBs. Of course it depends on the materials of your house, how many walls the signal has to travel. Quite likely you won't have troubles, but you could. Much depends on the antenna and there are several things you could do, besides replacing the antenna, like putting a repeater some place else or moving the access point.

I would stick to hard wired LAN connections as others have suggested.

The 2,4 GHz frequency used by wireless routers is also used by CCTV cameras, video senders, audio senders, etc. and there are a limited number of different channels for use on this frequency so you could find that you get interference from other such equipment that use it.

I didnt mean to be cocky but the original post was to use the internet on more than one computer simultaneously. I understand that in the future there could be implications if used for video and quality of service for VOIP/Video conferencing. But the biggest QOS issues are on the internet not between the connection between PC and Wireless access point.
Your solution has the first PC being connected to the internet wired and the second PC connected wirelessly.

My fault with that is that the second PC is reliant upon the first PC to get its internet. In essence that PC would be a server and would need a high uptime. ie leaving on, not rebooting, not playing hugely demanding games on it that'll slow it down and cause disruption.

The Wireless ADSL Router is an independant box that just deals with connecting and handing out the internet. Your concern is that if both PCs are wirelessly connected then that 54mb wiireless is going to be halved, and halved again etc, and thats after interference is taken into account which may cause an inpact on highly demanding internet applications such as video conferencing and voip.
The solution. A lot of Wireless ADSL Routers also have ethernet ports too. So one or more of the PCs can still be wired into the internet providing better QOS and speed. ie 100mb/s with no interference. With the advantage that the router is dealing with the internet connection, so you have no reliance on an individual PC being switched on.

We are beating it down with a stick, but heck I have plenty of time. I agree that having a DSL/Router/WiFi box including ethernet ports it's better. I proposed the 2nd solution because it's cheaper and the original poster already had a DSL modem. I was commenting, though, that I do prefer cable than wireless when possible.

I am sure the original poster is sick of the details and we are trying our best to confuse the issue.

SO... if you are still reading this thread YES order a new DSL/Router with 4 ethernet ports and wireless support from Telefonica and throw away your current box and you'll have all the options available to you.

Yes sorry, us IT Techy people are getting into a big debate here and probably confusing the original poster by a heck of a lot.

As i said earlier, its not the same matter of splicing your TV Cable to split the signal two ways is it? hehehe.


gudes, youll be amused to know that after all that I run in a similar configuration to you. I have a wireless access point connected to the ethernet port of a pc but that PC is my windows 2003 and exchange server stuffed in the cupboard under the stairs lol

I have a Telefonica DSL/Router/Wifi for the common users in my house: my wife and visitors. But then I have a LinkSys router with the firewall and there I connect two ubuntu servers and the rest of the computers. I guess life is pretty complicated these days. On the other hand I still need all that to make a living.

Cheers from Rainy Spain.

didnt mean to cause all this bickering

just wandered if there was an easy solution to my problem in that my son and his mates have all discovered MSN so he shoves me off my computer

I already have a lap top so thought if I could connect that it would be my solution. They will both be on different floors of the house so that might be an issue

Will phone Telefonica and order a new router

Thank you all for replying and thanks Mrs E for the PM

Just get a Telefonica router, I run two pc`s off it both wired, one wire goes though 6 walls and is 25 mtrs long.

This thread made me wonder how widespread computer stores are, especially on Costa del Sol - places like PC World as well as local independent shops?