Networks Making hotel internet access wireless?

My wife's company is working in a hotel board room for the month. The hotel does not have wireless internet access but they do have wired access. She asked me to look into if it would work if they got a wireless router and pluged it into the jack in the boardroom. I assume that the WAN on the router would go to the jack but I would also assume that there would be another router inbetween them and the modem.

Is this at all possible or easy to do?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

You probably want a wireless access point, not a router.
You also might want to ask the hotel about this first.

 

The hotel suggested it actually. Someone on the hotel staff told my wifes co-worker who told her who then told me, that they said "go get a wireless router", but something may have been lost in the chain of communication.

I though I read somewhere that a router can act as a wireless access point. But I know next to nothing about this subject so I'm not sure if that makes any sense.

Thanks

 

Just don't use the wan port on a wireless router, and it will act like a switch + wireless access point

 

You will almost certainly want a router, as you cant guarantee that the network your attaching to will give every laptop an IP. Just make sure the WAN port is an Ethernet port rather than an DSL or some other broadband connection, the router will then do all the routing & NAT out to the one (wired) IP. Added advantage of keeping your wife's companies machines protected from the general hotel network.

 

Thanks for all the input so far. I hadn't seen the last two responses before we had to go out and get one. I picked up a D-link WBR-1310. As expected the store wasn't sure either but they gave it a better than 50-50 chance that it would work. I guess there's only two chioces to hooking it up, either the WAN port or the LAN port can hook up to the hotel, if one doesn't work then they can try the other.

Cabe, does this router fall into your criteria? If not the store said there'd be no problems returning it.

Thanks.

 

biff, your good to go mate, thats a proper router and will do the job nicely.

http://www.dlink.com/products/resource.asp?pid=474&rid=1815&sec=0 on that pic the orange line between the CABLE/DSL MODEM and the dlink is the equivilent of the cable that comes from the wired ethernet port from the hotel network.

 

Great, thanks!

 

Cabe, FYI, everything worked like a charm.

Thanks again!
Ryan