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Suppose I have a desktop PC and several portable devices (a laptop, tablet, phone, etc.). I want the desktop to access the internet directly through an ethernet connection and then I want to wirelessly broadcast this signal to my other devices.

Basically, ethernet goes into desktop - and something sticks out from one of its USB ports that broadcasts a Wifi signal to all the other devices. Is such a 'something' available?

(A Wifi router would be the ideal solution if it weren't for the fact that I stubbornly want my desktop to be connected via ethernet and not wireless - also assume that the desktop has only one ethernet port.)

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All consumer grade wireless routers these days have a built in switch with at least 4 ports, you can still use ethernet to plug the computer into one of the switch ports on the router and have all your portables on wireless.

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You can try and do the following.

  1. Buy a ethernet hub, a cheap one to split your ethernet to two ports.
  2. Connect one port to the internet and the other to a wireless router
  3. Setup the wireless router to act as an access point.
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Might not work if you try to connect 2 machines to the ISPs modem. Most will only allocate 1 IP address for you. – sakkaku May 29 '11 at 20:04
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