Wireless router

Can anyone tell me if I can use one of these routers to plug in my telephone socket? I don't have broadband or adsl or any fast internet. When i connect I just dial up.

a router provides wireless network access, it does not provide internet connection and it is not a modem so it cannot connect to the phone socket. You will still need some sort of modem to connect to the internet.

My laptop has a modem inbuilt which does the dialling

Then you will have to plug it in. The modem must be plugged into the phone jack.
You might be able to set up another computer to dial up, and connect the router from there, so you would have wireless to the laptop, but I'm not sure how/if its doable. People generally don't network unless they have broadband.

are there any devices that will enable my laptop to connect to the internet without actually plugging the phone jack in it. The laptop has a wireless card. I only use dial up connection to the ISP.

do you have another pc in the area? if so, what OS is it running?

Don't get a wireless unless you really need it... They transfer the stuff so far... The guy at a computer store, when I went to get a router told my dad that if you are not in a big place, people can 'detect' the air waves with radars, and they can steal your bandwidth or hack your files from a laptop in their car.

And why do you need the router? Just plug in your laptop... You don't need to sleep with your porn! (LOL )

Well I just wanted to be able to turn my laptop on and connect to the internet without the need for a cable connection.

Thats "wardriving". However, new routers encrypt the data they transfer, and can be set up very securely. If you set them up right, security is not really a point against wireless routers.

mihai- You could set up another pc to be plugged in and connected to the internet, then use the router to give access to that connection. However, it would not be faster than just dialing on your own from the laptop (other than saving the dial time), and it would keep your phone line tied up all the time.
I say don't bother.
(Actually, I say get a cable modem or dsl, then the router would be worthwhile )

Thanks Karsh.

You know, if you set the wifi router to only allow cards with a specific MAC address and/or use WEP, Wi-Fi can be secured.

We deploy Wifi now for most of our Kiosk public access systems at hotels and airports now. Those that wish to have a "hot spot" in their lobby get it, those that don't, we only allow the cards that are in our terminals to connect to the system.

They do have a long range though. My Fiance lives one story up and three apartments over and we share a cable connection via wifi and I can get a decent speed throughout most of my apartment.

yeah. my router is in my office (top floor, back corner of house) and i can get laptop reception throughout my house, garden, front garden, garage, etc.

Ya... I guess it can be safe. Maybe the guy at the store just sucks.

If you lived in an apartment, yeah, I could see people leaching bandwidth. Before we got cable someone had a WiFi network unsecured and I leached off of them.

I mean, no computer network is 100% safe, but really, the number of people crusing around the neighborhood at 2am trying to find a hot spot to hack are pretty few.

if you set up WEP and MAC address control it is damn safe...