My friend had dial up for all these years. Been after her to get a dsl but for some reason or another, that never happened.

She has a regular computer, windows 98, and like I said "dial up"

A few weeks ago, her daughter (who lives upstairs), ran a line out of her window and down to where the mother lives. She hooked that line to the back of her mom's computer.

Wham Bam, she is now (I don't know what else to call it, but she's piggybacking her daughter's signal???)

Networking???

There is a line going from upstairs, down the side of the house and into the first floor and into the back of her computer.

there is no modem involved, so it's all from a connection from the daughter's computer.

So how is this possible? If the daughter had a router (because there might be a laptop in that house also), is this line coming out of the laptop?

I can't ask the daughter because I haven't seen her yet, and my friend doesn't know a lot about computers so she doesn't know where the other end of the line is coming out of.

And here's another of my stupid questions.

If one has a router in a house and they can hook up a laptop via wireless, can they also hook up another computer via wireless, or does this only pertain to laptops?

I mean, if the daughter did not run the line from upstairs, could she have done this wirelessly??

Stupid question, but I really don't know the answer.

Thanks much. lol

mel

most likely daughter has a dsl modem with a router {wired} and the line is plugged into the router and connected to the mothers pc.
probably a LAN cable - LAN = local area network

I haven't checked in ages but I think routers can be wired only, wireless plus wires, and wireless only. Ours is wireless with wire connections available.


The mothers computer would have to have a wireless receiver card inside for it to get a wireless signal - with windows 98 connecting / finding a compatible card would be tricky.
And the daughter would have to have a wireless router.

In a city /apartment setting the wired/cabled connections are more secure , no worry about others nearby picking up any wireless signal or or info.

If people read about it and set up good security for their wireless router then all should be fine.