Going Wireless at Home
 

I am looking to have a wireless network set up in my house, I have received two estimates of $130 and $180. Do these sound like they are reasonable? Does anyone know what something like this cost? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

It's Pretty Easy
 

I have a Mac and I've become accustomed to the "user friendliness" of Macs in the 25 years I've owned them. I set up a wireless network in my home using a Mac Airport Extreme base station which I ordered at the Apple Store online. That piece of equipment will work with either Macs or PCs, but you could buy another wi-fi base station that might work just as well at Best Buy or Circuit City. The Linksys models are very popular wi-fi base stations.

If the Linksys installation is similar to the Mac Aiport Extreme, it should have a "setup assistant" to lead you thru a few steps to activate your new wireless network. It took me all of about 10 minutes, most of which was used placing the base station in a convenient place and hooking it up.

You asked whether $130-180 to get this done seemed reasonable. I would agree that it probably is a reasonable price. The Apple Airport Extreme costs $179 and the Linksys wireless routers, as they refer to them, cost right in the range of what you've been told. Your computer will have to have a wireless card in order to communicate with the base station or router, and I assume that you already have that installed.

Personally, I'd recommend the Apple Airport Extreme Base Station, but you'll be able to set your wi-fi network up using that or another router for just about what you've been quoted.

Re: Going Wireless at Home
 

I just bought a Toshiba wireless laptop and I still have an old Compaq Presario desktop. I bought a Linksys router from Circuit City for $49.95 and it took about 10 minutes to hook up both systems. I ran into a few problems afterward and was able to easily resolve them with the help of Linksys phone support. It's not really that difficult to do. The laptop is wireless, the desktop is cable connect.

Re: Going Wireless at Home
 

:agree: Steve

Re: Going Wireless at Home
 

I agree too. It's really not much harder than configuring a printer. I've done wireless installs a number of times. The wireless routers have become pretty cheap. I've used D-Link routers myself.
Is your laptop already wireless? If it's not, you'll also need to configure it with a wireless card. I've purchased them for as little as $10. Usually they cost around $50 as well, but I got one on special.
Does the $180 you mention include the equipment? And is it for a router and a card for the computer? If it includes the equipment, and you are not prone to doing this sort of thing yourself, then the $180 isn't bad. If you have to spend another $100 on equipment, it's not so good.
Have you thought to get the hardware, install it yourself, and if you can't get it right, hire someone to come in and install (fix) then?

Re: Going Wireless at Home
 

Wireless is reasonably easy to try a self install. If you go to a place like Circuit City on the internet and look at the prices you can get a good wireless router for about $30. If you don't have a wireless adapter you can get a USB adapter for about the same price. That way you don't have to open up the PC to install a card. Tech support of the manufacturers will help with most problem installs.

Re: Going Wireless at Home
 

If you go to the Computer thread you will see a topic on Wireless Computers with some valuable info on this topic.