Wireless router set up

Wireless router location

Where possible, place your wireless router in a central location in your home. Move the router off the floor and away from walls and metal objects (such as metal file cabinets) as these will interfere with your router's wireless signals. If your router is near an outside wall, half of the wireless signals will be sent outside your home, and much of your router's power will be wasted. Dual antennas generally mean that you can play with individual antenna positions in order to create the best transceiver field for the chosen router location. If your wireless router is on the first floor of your house and your PC/laptop is on the second floor, try putting the wireless router on a shelf higher up in the room where it is located.

Ready to go

Wireless routers are designed to work easily out of the box: in most cases, it should be a matter of plugging the router into the power supply and then connecting it to your cable, DSL or other modem. In the first instance, establish a connection to the modem via cable Ethernet (usually a cable is supplied with the router). Insert the supplied router's setup CD into the PC drive and complete the setup procedure. Be ready to plug the router cable into your PC Ethernet port when prompted. Once the setup has completed, it should be now possible to connect to the router via a web browser.

Connecting to the router

With the router connected to a PC with an Ethernet cable, it will be possible to connect to the router's configuration via a browser. Open up a web browser and enter the following and hit return:
http://192.168.1.1 or
http://192.168.2.1
The router's configuration screen will be displayed in the browser. The following is the configuration from a Belkin B5DUK045 wireless router.
Belkin Router Setup Belkin B5DUK045 wireless router configuration
The Internet Status will show as Connected when the router is communicating to the internet. If if shows No Connection then check all cables and ensure that they all all plugged in correctly. You may have to contact your service provider to have your broadband service enabled.
Now open a web browser and attempt to connect to the internet (e.g. http://www.google.com) to verify the broadband service is functioning correctly before we adjust the security settings.
Now unplug your internet cable IMMEDIATELY and leave it unplugged until your router is secure.........

Securing your router

Straight out of the box, your wireless router will be set to factory default settings and you're potentially opening yourself to intruders both from the internet and in your own neighborhood. You now need to secure your router. It is recommended that your router is left DISCONNECTED from your incoming internet connection until your router is secure.

Setting up your home network for sharing files and folders

It may be very convenient for you to share files and folders on your wireless home network. This is relatively straight forward to do and here we explain how.

Setting up your home network for wireless printing

Set up wireless printing for the home or office. Print from anywhere in your home or office. Follow these few simple steps to print from anywhere.