After seeing someone mention the little TP-Link TL-WR702N Nano Router in another thread I had a read about it and thought “That sounds the very thing for me.”

http://uk.tp-link.com/products/details/?model=TL-WR702N

I’m sat at a desk with a corporate desktop PC, with one ethernet connection to the outside world and no wifi.

So my cunning plan was to plug this little box into the desktop PC via USB and use it to create a little wifi hotspot (so my phone isn’t eating data allowance whilst sat on my desk).

The product page suggests this is something it can do: “When traveling, users can plug the TL-WR702N into their computer’s USB port and share their Wi-Fi connection with family and friends.”

But a browse of the manual shows no mention of this. It seems to only use the USB for power – it doesn’t appear as a device or anything when it is plugged in.

Looks like it can only extend existing wifi or turn ethernet (via the ethernet port) into wifi.

Am I missing something or is that about it?

connection sharing is disabled on my corporate network. yours may be different.

Yeah, you need to plug an ethernet cable into the ethernet hole. 😉

Now you could do this I’m sure but then you’ll be
a) Plugging an unauthorised device into your corporate network
b) creating an unauthorised corporate wireless point
c) Be allowing whatever (unauthorised) wireless device you’re using to access the corporate network

I would take a very dim view of this on my network. You’ve just succesfully negated a huge amount of extremely expensive infrastructure and exposed the internal network to people for miles around.

Obviously it may not work if they have access control set up and depending on your internet access arrangements, it almost certainly won’t allow you to get out anyway.

Apart from that, great plan 😉

Looks like it can only extend existing wifi or turn ethernet (via the ethernet port) into wifi.

Yes*.

Also, as samuri said, you’re almost certainly breaching the conditions of you using the corporate network, if it would even work at all. If you did make it work, I’d expect a smackdown. You’re effectively allowing unauthorised access to your company network.

* I have a MR3020, separated at birth from yours.

Yeah I’m aware of the security concerns. They aren’t really an issue. I’m in a serviced office. My “corporate network” here consists of me, my desktop and an ethernet connection to the outside world.

And I’m quite happy to lock down the wifi with WPA2-PSK on the off chance that someone from the lorry driver training school next door happens to be an hacker.

The issue is really can it be done. I’m kind of thinking not with this hardware. As apparently I do “need to plug an ethernet cable into the ethernet hole” which seems rather contrary to the spiel about plugging into USB to share wifi and the accompanying pictures:

Oh well. I needed a repeater for home use anyway – guess it’ll do for that. At least it was cheap.

Thanks chaps.

I have one of those boxes Graham. The pic on the right just means it’s USB powered, it doesn’t share your PCs connection. You can turn it into an AP though (which I think is what you want):

http://uk.tp-link.com/article/?id=393

“miles around” – hm, range is about 100m or so.

I have one, Graham, didn’t take long to set up and has been a boon – out of all proportion to it’s cost – to me in my shed/office – I can even get a connection in the bike shed next door which previously required a hard wired CAT5 cable.

But I plug it into the simple router, CAT5 style, don’t use USB. Mine is powered normal fashion. Used it initially for same as you, faster data speed on phone (usually it’s ‘E’ at best) but really handy little device.

Sorry can’t help more though.
Callum

You can turn it into an AP though (which I think is what you want)

Thanks – wish I’d found that before hitting the “Buy” button as it shows that it definitely doesn’t do what I want!

I wanted the AP/hotspot to be created by plugging that box in via USB, and it presenting itself as a network device that provided wireless NAT access to my PC’s existing network connection.

I’m pretty sure that is a possible thing – but not with this gadget. 🙁

just get a macbook then. you can do that with the built in wireless card.

Yeah you can do it with pretty much any wifi card I think. No need for a Mac. But actually installing new cards on the work PC would be dodgy.

I guess maybe a little USB wifi dongle might do the job.

Why can’t you just connect it to your wired connection Graham? If you use a cheapo hub you can still be wired from your laptop and use the nano as a wifi AP for your phone (is that what you’re trying to achieve?)

Why can’t you just connect it to your wired connection Graham?

I could but I’d have to buy and add in a little multi-port hub of some kind.

Hmm.. anyone got any suggestions for a very cheap “nano” multi-port hub that also has wifi? (e.g. ethernet cable from wall to hub. 2nd cable from hub to PC for wired access. hub also creates wifi for my phone)

Sort of like this thing but with one WAN and one (or more) LAN ports.