Last week I had this crazy idea to get a wireless router and set it up so that I could roam with my laptop and eventually add more computers to my network. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

First, let me say that it’s not the first time I’ve done this, so it should not have been so difficult. But, then again, I had no idea what I was up against.

The problem was, that when I went to the store to purchase a router, I picked up a router that was hopelessly out of date. Of course, I didn’t know this until later. I was looking for the brands I knew (Linksys, etc.) but didn’t find them so instead I picked up a D-Link Router - never bothering to look at the date of manufacture. At first, I couldn’t even get it to make a connection with my computer, but finally after several tries I did. Of course, I was in contact with the Italian help desk for this via email, but the only wisdom they provided was to tell me to use the reset button. (I figured that out myself.)

Then, I could go no further without receiving an error, but by this time, the router installation program had already modified the IP address, Gateway, and DNS1 & 2 used to connect to the internet. And yes, someone (we won’t mention any names) didn’t think to back up that information or even to simply write it down.

So, I had to contact my ISP, but considering that it was Friday night, I knew I wouldn’t hear back until Monday. Fortunately, my contact there is very helpful (and understands my half-English half-Italian descriptions of the problem) and Monday morning he gave me the information I needed so that I could go back to using my DSL and stop using my backup telephone line (talk about slow). This time, I wrote everything down though.

So, it was back to step 1 and I tried again to set it up with no luck. I could tell my router was connecting to the internet because packets were going back and forth and I could communicate with the router from the PC, but I couldn’t get to the internet through the Router. My ISP contact assured me it was some local setting since he was able to see my PC on the network.

I tried upgrading firmware and got nowhere. Then I noticed, that the system time was wrong on the router. When I tried to change it, I had a dropdown menu of choices for year and it didn’t go past 2007. Could this be the problem? I don’t know, but after an entire day of messing with it and getting nowhere and since it was obviously pretty outdated, I decided to return it to the store. Now, this can be a fun process here in Italy. Stores here rarely take things back - regardless of whether you have a receipt or not. Plus, I had bought it 10 days before, so I was ready for an argument. But, fortunately for me, after I pointed out the problem, they did take it back and I was able to swap it out for another brand (which, I checked to make sure was of recent manufacture.)

Within 15 minutes last night I had my wireless network set up, after a week’s worth of frustration with the previous model. Thank Goodness. You can be sure that in the future I’ll be checking any computer equipment I buy here to make sure it’s a recent model. It was no fun having to go back to dialup for 3 days.

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