I have a wireless router through which I connect this laptop and printer. My nephew also has his xbox on the same router.
As he now works for another broadband provider, they have given him a free router. As he will be connecting the xbox to his router will he need to remove it from my router or will it work on both?
Thumper
You can have equipment connected to both at once if you want.
There are a few things to beware of when setting up the new router. If you place it on the same subnet, then it needs is own unique IP different from the first one, and not within the DHCP range of addresses handed out by the first. You probably also want to disable DHCP on the new router so that all clients acquire their lan addresses from just one router. If you can configure the DHCP router to be able to supply the default gateway address of both routers, then the lan clients will be able to use the second as a fallback path should the first become unavailable. Note that all traffic will by default travel via which ever router is advertised as the first default gateway. (you can also create manual routes on some of the client machines to direct traffic to the second WAN connection if you wish.
There are other variations and possibilities as well.
It will only connect to one router (at a time).
A bigger question is does he have a separate phone line to connect his router to (assuming ADSL)?
Thumper,
You haven't given enough information to answer properly here, so I will make some assumptions.
if this is the case, then, while it is possible to connect two separate routers up to the same network, it isn't normally practical to do this unless you know what you are doing, and have a reason to do this.
So, in short, your nephew can reconfigure the Xbox to connect to his router but WiFi (or disconnect it from yours, and use a cable for a more reliable connection)
If you what to connect it all together, let me know what you are trying to achieve, and I will be happy to help.
Has this ISP just given him a router, or has he also got his own broadband connection to go with it?
the question to ask, is whether they gave him a phone line to connect it to as well.
You cant have two routers on the same phone line.
Hopefully they will be very separate. I'm using Virginmedia cable broadband going through a Cisco Linksys wireless N router. He's been given free BT infinity with BT home hub.
It will also be interesting to see who gets faster connection. Mine is regularly 9-10MB, his has been estimated will be 6-14MB.
Yes. He's put a BT line into his room. My internet is on VM cable.
He's got free BT infinity and BT home hub router.
Totally different lines. One BT, the other Virgin cable.
OK, thanks for clarifying.
He should connect his xbox to one or the other, presumably his, as it's his console.
The problem will come if you want to share a recourse, like your printer, but you haven't suggested you need to do that.
Connect the both via a *modem*. I'm sure we'va had this discusion before.
MBQ
Just checking - are you asking if a wireless device can bind to two wireless routers at once?
AFAIK it cannot.
If you are using a wired connection then you can have two routers on the same Ethernet network - after all this happens a lot a bit deeper into the Internet - but you then have to make choices about which of the routers you use to get to the Internet. If you are on wired and want to load share and are happy modifying routing tables then you can chose to go through different routers for different remote sites. However this is probably more hassle than you want.
A wireless device can connect to different wireless routers - all it needs is a password - but you need to tell it which to connect to automatically.
Easy to disconnect from one router then connect to the other. After all, this is what guests do if you allow them to use your wireless network when they call round.
Hope this helps
Dave R
Sounds a bit slow for BT infinity - should be up to 40Mb/s and distance from the exchange wouldn't make much difference.
Simon.
If you want to take full advantage of both, then stick a load balancing router in front of both connections. Something like a Draytek Vigor 2920 will let you feed it two wan connections, or the 2850, will take a wan connection from your cable via ethernet, and connect directly to a VDSL line for Infinity.
That will then share connections out over both links, and will mean things like torrent downloads would be able to max out the joint capacity of both links.
That's what it says on the letter from BT.
I was, just out of interest.
A device could connect to both routers simultaneously. But whether that device can or not, well, I'd guess not. There is little obvious reason for it to have been designed to do so.
in theory it can be done. In practice, not with a diddly squat domestic piece of computing hardware, and not down the end of some ISPS pipe where you can't get routing updates to propagate.
As another poster suggested, with two modems and a special router connected to them, you can use both pipes at once from one device, but the device ain't connecting to two routers., Its connecting to ONE router that is smart enough to keep track of which conversations are going up which pipe, and which to expect answers down.
>
That sounds like regular ADSL2 or 2+. BT Infinity (FTTC) will run at nearly 40Mbits/s or nearly 80Mbits/s, depending which service you buy.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.