Wireless connection to 802.11i router

[mnorman]

I've done this a bit backwards - I bought a tivo (tks rob and darren). All is working, and I'm loving it. It has a wired ethernet port and is updating nicely via a connection to my switch. Albeit using the temp cat6 i've been running from the living room to the study.

But now I am buying a netgear fvg318 wireless router which support 802.11i security among other things.

So much for forward planning ;)

So my question is now if I limit air access to the router via to clients supporting 802.11i security what are my options for hooking up the TiVo without the cable.

Cheap would be ideal to bridge this gap.

I was hoping their might be a cheap device to relay from the ethernet to wireless, but so far all I'm seeing doesn't support the latest security standards.

I could replace the card in the tivo (preferrably not). But I'm not clear yet what my options are here. I'm sure I can read more about this on the site, but haven't got to that yet.

Is anyone familiar with anything that might fit the bill?

And yes, I'm anal about security if using wireless technology - sorry ;p

[zollymonsta]

There are ethernet to wireless adapters you can get (for example for PS2 etc) but not sure if they support security. Some other people have used them so maybe they can respond.

If they don't support security, then perhaps you could go with the next best thing and lock the connections down by MAC address.

ZollyMonsta
(Still to venture down that road!)

[petestrash]

You can forget going the internal route as they only support 802.11b.

You will need either an external bridge or a gaming adapter, but I haven't seen any that have been confrimed to happily run 802.11i.

Some people have even reported problems using WPA over a bridge to a TiVo, though WEP should be ok.

I haven't got any personal experience, all mine are hard wired.

Peter.

[petestrash]

I just checked with my Netgear sales rep and he says they don't currently have a bridge that can do 802.11i. There is also none in the current pipeline which is usually about 2 months into the future.

I asked if a 2nd FVG318 could be used as a bridge, but he did not know. He checked with tech support and they also didn't know if it was possible.

Peter.

[mnorman]

Thanks a lot for looking into it Pete, much appreciated.

It's an interesting idea using a second fvg318 as a bridge, I'll check that out. If that doesn't work I may be able to vpn to it - though I'm not sure yet if that can be done over an internal lan. Either way I plan to learn more about vpn when the fvg318 is in stock and I can get my hands on it.

Running a second fvg318 could get me into the same price bracket as running a wired drop out to the living room so I can check out both options unless a 3rd alternative shows up.

ZollyMonsta, tks for the input :) Locking out clients by MAC and using WEP I'm sure would secure me against 99% of "would be intruders", but i've been hanging out on implementing wireless until I can plug some of the holes that I think are just not that hard to get around with pre 802.11i solutions (MAC spoofing, WEP Cracking). This will just give me the peace of mind of not wondering it someone with skillz and motivation is in proximity (which is ever expanding) to my network. It would kind of defeat the purpose of waiting to then fall back to a WEP/MAC filtering solution.

It should only be a matter of time before this technology becomes main stream now that products are starting to hit the consumer/small business market.

[petestrash]

Running a second fvg318 could get me into the same price bracket as running a wired drop out to the living room so I can check out both options unless a 3rd alternative shows up.

If it's security your after stick with wired if the costs are similar. Plus your guaranteed the bandwidth to allow multiple streams should you decide to by a 2nd TiVo.

Peter.