Wireless access to Wired on O2 Router

[travelling_slow]

Hi, relative novice here, so apologies if I have missed something obvious. My basic question is, why can I not connect between a wired attached device and a wireless attached laptop when both are using the O2 supplied broadband router?

I have a "standard" set up with an O2 Broadband Router running a wireless network (A) that works fine - good internet access for multiple laptops and all using a wirelessly attached printer. I have also now attached via the wired port (B) a Netgear Powerline AV (XAV101) linked to an XAV1004 which sucessfully connects my Humax Freesat box to the internet - this enables very good reception of the beta BBC iPlayer service.

So (A) & (B) both work fine at doing what they are intended to do.

So what's the problem? Well what I had also wanted to do was to use the DLNA facility of the Sony Bravia TV to stream Photographs from a wireless laptop to the TV.

However I am unable to even "see" the Netgear Powerline devices from my wirelessly attached laptop, the Netgear Config programme will only find these if I also attached the laptop by ethernet cable to the Broadband router.

My question is: Is it possible to "bridge" between the Wireless (A) and Wired (B) networks? If so how?

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

[Saturday]

Originally Posted by travelling_slow

My question is: Is it possible to "bridge" between the Wireless (A) and Wired (B) networks? If so how?

With a standard router it's not really possible NOT to. Your router will have given out a LAN address in the same range to all devices connected that request one irrespective of whether connected via the wireless function or ethernet cable (the powerline adaptors are immaterial). Those network addresses are physically able to communicate with each other via the router.

I'm not surprised that you can't see the powerline devices when using wireless, what's puzzling is that you can when using a cable - you shouldn't be able to see them as they should be transparent to the network in the same way that an ethernet cable or ethernet switch can't be seen.

If I understand you correctly you want to stream media from your laptop to your TV? Then the issue you have to address is being able to see your TV as a device in the network. What's not clear is have you achieved this with your laptop connected by ethernet cable to the router and the issue is you can't do this wirelessly for some reason? Or have you not been able to connect the TV to the laptop via the router wired or wireless?

[travelling_slow]

Thanks for the prompt response.

Originally Posted by Saturday

With a standard router it's not really possible NOT to. Your router will have given out a LAN address in the same range to all devices connected that request one irrespective of whether connected via the wireless function or ethernet cable (the powerline adaptors are immaterial). Those network addresses are physically able to communicate with each other via the router.

Thanks for the confirmation - eliminates this from the problem

Originally Posted by Saturday

I'm not surprised that you can't see the powerline devices when using wireless, what's puzzling is that you can when using a cable - you shouldn't be able to see them as they should be transparent to the network in the same way that an ethernet cable or ethernet switch can't be seen.

When using the Netgear Configuration Utility programme I can only see the details of the Powerline devices when attached with an ethernet cable. Sounds like this is irrelevant though. So again thanks.

Originally Posted by Saturday

If I understand you correctly you want to stream media from your laptop to your TV? Then the issue you have to address is being able to see your TV as a device in the network. What's not clear is have you achieved this with your laptop connected by ethernet cable to the router and the issue is you can't do this wirelessly for some reason? Or have you not been able to connect the TV to the laptop via the router wired or wireless?

Yes this is my objective. I have not yet seen the TV, either wired or wirelessly. However I have been distracted by the Powerline question. This evening I will concentrate on this aspect of the problem. I'll let you know how I get on. Cheers

[Saturday]

OK, that clears that up then.

I suspect what you're trying to do may be challenging or simply impossible. First your TV will have to be network capable and then you'll no doubt have issues over what formats can be streamed (if any).

Probably the best thing would be to Google "[your tv model] dlna set up", "[your tv model] ethernet connection", "[your tv model] stream over network", etc and see what that comes up with.

[travelling_slow]

I have done that bit - TV is definately DLNA capable model Bravia. I have connected to the XAV1004 and the TV menu does show me an IP address. So I am optimistic that I can do this. Will take the next steps this evening. Cheers

[travelling_slow]

OK, all fixed. No longer distracted by thinking the Powerline adapters were not accessible across the wireless to wired LAN, getting TV set up using WMC 11 was a breeze.

Cheers.

[Saturday]

Brilliant - well done