Connecting a wireless router to an existing Internet connection

This question was recently asked in our Ask A Question section, the exact question is here. The situation is that this person already has an existing Internet connection. For the purpose of this guide I'm going to assume they have a cable Internet provided. Lets take a look at what we'll need to get. We'll start with the basis, a Linksys Wireless Router. There are a lot of wireless routers out there and everyone certainly has their own opinions. For me personally I like Linksys (Cisco) and its really easy to setup so this tutorial will go over how to set one up with a cable Internet provider.

Materials Needed

• Linksys Wireless Router (Model Number: WRT54G)

Steps to take

1. Currently right now your cable Internet comes out of the wall and into the cable modem. From there a network cable comes out of the cable modem and into the back of your computer.
2. What we are going to do is take the network cable out of the back of the computer and plug it into the WAN (or Internet) port on the Linksys Router. This outputs the Internet into the Linksys Router.
3. Now take the included network cable out of the Linksys box and placed it in any of the 4 other ports on the back of the router.
4. Put the other end into the computer.
5. Unplug the power to your cable modem. Wait a few seconds and plug it back in.

So what this did was take the Internet and place the router in between the modem and the computer. By default the Linksys router will be broardcasting the wireless (insecurely!). Next time I'll go over how to secure your wireless connection so your nosey neighbors don't use it.