switching out my cable modem

[crazydog]

so this is what happened.

i have two computers, one in the living room and one in my room. we've been using bellsouth for our internet (dsl) (in the living room, no internet in my room), but we decided to change to cable. so we call up our time warner cable company and they hook up roadrunner internet in my room via LAN ethernet cable. thats it. so now there is no internet in the living room and we wanted to ask the company to put wireless internet in the living room. they said they would charge us 20 bucks extra.

i looked up the modem they put in my room and i could only find out that its an AMBIT modem but im guessing its an old model because i cant find information about it anywhere.
the model number is 60194E-004.

im guessing the company didnt want us to just buy a wireless adapter and get internet access on two computers so they gave me this modem so the only option i have is to buy the wireless service and modem from them.

i want to know if its ok to buy and use a different modem with my cable service. is the service only like usable on the modem they gave me? i dont even know if this modem is wireless or not so im guessing ill just buy another one.



tl;dr: is it ok to switch out the modem the cable company gave me to another one that offers wireless? and why are they charging 20 bucks extra to have two computers hooked up via wireless when all we need to get is an adapter? does it charge extra to hook up an additional computer via wireless?


im very confused

 

[Angel Chicken]

Usually the way it works, you can only have one modem hooked up in the home, with wireless internet connected to any other computers.

The extra 20 bucks is probably labor fees.

And it is not recommended to switch out the modem, you can have troubles and then the cable company will not be able to help, since you went out and got the new modem and it wouldn't be under their name.

Now thinking about it, you should be able to buy a router and a wireless card (if your computer doesn't have one), and be able to hook the internet up that way.

 

[DemitriousK]

Ideally you would not need to switch out the cable modem at all (unless it is not working properly for you)

What you need is a wireless router (the Linksys WRT54GL is a good router [link]).

And two wireless network access cards for your PC's (I'm assuming that you're using windows here) something like the Linksys Compact Wireless-G USB adapter [link]

This way the wireless router is actually the "computer" connected to the cable modem and it allows all of your computers to access the internet through it.

If you don't go with linksys, then pick a reputable brand which you can acquire all the pieces from (router and network cards) do yourself a favor and dont try to get d-link working with netgear and generic comp usa brand too. Yes it's possible, and not it might not be hard for a computer tech, but I'm not volunteering to be tech support

 

[crazydog]

so do i buy a router and connect it to my modem via ethernet cable or do i just switch out the modem to the router?

tell me im getting this right..
a modem is just for getting my computer internet access;
and a router is just needed if im trying to connect multiple computers together, it doesnt serve as something that provides my computer the access?

did that make sense?

i appreciate the help you guys are giving me. i just need to get this figured out soon so i can get internet access in the LR..