Home WLAN & Internet WLAN simultaneously

[jkforde]

Hi,
I have a Dell D600 with Pentium M running XP SP3 and have two WPA-secured
WLANs available - home (file sharing & printing) and internet from next door
(landlord paid for!).
I want to connect to both networks at the same time without the need to
disconnect from the internet link to print and visa versa via the 'View
Wireless Networks' dialogue! Is there a simple way to do this for a person
who only understands the basics of networking!

Thanks a million,
jkforde

 

[Jay Moore]

For someone who only understands basics....the easiest soltion is to get a
second WLAN card (or usb device) for your desktop. Connect one to your
internet-point and the other to your local WLAN for file/print sharing.

You COULD do something crazy like establish a link with the internet WLAN to
your file/print WLAN and only have to maintain one connection, but if you
only understand the basics of networking, it'll be over your heard.

 

[Jack \(MVP-Networking\).]

Hi
Even if you have two cards a Client OS (like Windows) can not use the two
connection at the same time.
To use two connection you need a Dual WAN Router fed by cables.
Combining two Internet Connections - http://www.ezlan.net/loadbalance.html
Jack (MVP-Networking).

 

[Jay Moore]

No.....

You've kind of gotten this confused with another issue..he's not wanting to
use two internet connections...but he wants to be on two seperate
networks..one has a WAN connection and the other is strictly LAN.

A few years ago when my DSL was working properly..i could get multiple IP's
simply requesting them from DHCP..so, I had a wired connection directly to
my network switch which was plugged into the DSL modem, and the rest of the
network was using the same internet connection through the router. This
worked fine..kept my traffic "seperate" from everyone elses...but I was left
out of the local LAN. So I installed a WLAN card in my PC and logged into
the router manually setting an IP and leaving off "default gateway" for that
connection. My PC would route all internet traffic to the wired port (as it
had the default gateway), and local traffic would get pushed to the WLAN
card and off to the router..so print and file sharing worked
perfectly...this was with XP prior to SP2.

If he was wanting to use TWO internet connections...he would need something
in the middle to provide load-balencing

 

[Jay Moore]

If you take my advice (and didn't see my reply to Jack)...if you do
this...on the WLAN that doesn't have an internet connection....write down
it's IP address and such, and then manually set the IP....but leave
default-gateway blank. You'll still have local connectivity but it won't try
to route any internet traffic over it.