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  #1  
Old August 10th, 2010, 03:49 AM
essenceofire essenceofire is offline
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No authentication (open) and signal strength

We just received a wireless 2wire gateway from at&t and it is hooked up and everything works perfectly. I noticed when I went to properties on my laptop that it says that our router has no authentication (open) selected.
However, it has WEP encryption and a security key. We had to enter this security key when we connected our laptops for the first time.

I just want to make sure that it is secure and our neighbors cannot access it. If it isn't secure, anyone have any advice on what we should change it to? (And, do I need to change it on all laptops or just this one).

Also, I noticed that my bedroom only has 4 bars of service. I cranked up the power level on the gateway's setup page from 4 to 10, but still no change. Is that the only way to increase it with this gateway for free? Will I still get the same speed from 4 bars as I would 5 bars?

Thank you!
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  #2  
Old August 10th, 2010, 08:51 PM
ecross ecross is offline
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Hello essenceofire,

The encryption type depends on what your network hardware can support. If you can use WPA or even better WPA2 I would definitely use it.

For more details, please see:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u..._03july28.mspx
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  #3  
Old August 10th, 2010, 08:52 PM
essenceofire essenceofire is offline
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So even though you need to enter a password to connect to my router it is still unsecured?
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  #4  
Old August 10th, 2010, 09:18 PM
ecross ecross is offline
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An encryption key is required whether its open or shared but WPA offers better security. For more information, please refer to:

http://www.2wire.com/pages/pdfs/5100...-000.Rev.A.pdf
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  #5  
Old August 10th, 2010, 11:03 PM
essenceofire essenceofire is offline
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Okay I changed it to WPA2-PSK and entered the password. It works now, is that a good security then?
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  #6  
Old August 11th, 2010, 09:58 PM
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z1p z1p is offline
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esssenceoffire, that is fine for security, just don't pass the key of to everyone and you should be fine. ;^)
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