WPA and WEP (or open) on the same router possible?

I've got 2 laptops. Both with 802.11 built in... one has 802.11b with WEP only. The other is a newer model with 802.11g and supports WPA+PKA.

So my question is, is there 1 wireless router out there that can handle both types of connection? Right now I'm using a Dlink DI-614+ for the 802.11b with open (no encryption). And an Airlink 802.11g router to handle the newer laptop with G and WPA protection. Not to mention my older original Linksys BEFW-something or another which was my first router and still handles all my DHCP serving.

Now, obviously this is alot of routers - and alot of overkill.... but the Linksys and cable modem are both upstairs, and I get terrible signal downstairs - which is why I eventually hardwired a link from upstairs to downstairs and added the d-link router. I wanted to replace the dlink with the airlink (in favor of the 802.11g) but realized I couldn't connect my older 802.11b laptop! so here I am with 3 wireless routers... the one upstairs has Wireless disabled- but serves all the DHCP ip's for the entire LAN.

Now I've slurred a bit off topic - but the basic question is: Is there a wireless router/access point that can serve 802.11b with either NO ENCRYPTION or WEP encryption, PLUS 802.11g with WPA protection at the same time? Or am I gonna have to buy a 802.11g dongle for my old laptop?

 

May I ask what the advantage of having an encrypted connection is when you have an unencrypted one right next to it? That's like putting a screen door on a vault? If the premise is that you can still use the newer laptop for connections requiring higher security, you should be warned that by flooding the switch with bogus ARP packets it may still be possible to force it to echo the activity of one connection over the other (unencrypted) one... Honestly I think you should just get a 802.11g PCMCIA card for the older laptop.

Your answer: Higher end Cisco APs ($$$) can serve multiple SSIDs independantly configured, but I don't think any consumer ones can. WRT54G v2-4 are good and run linux, it might be possible to do it yourself, but it would definately rate as a difficult task. The easiest way is the way you are currently doing it.

You could eliminate one of the routers by having one of the wireless routers take over DHCP, but then you'd have less blinky lights.

 

Agreed... the reason the 802.11b signal is unencrypted, the card in the older laptop sux. Has a hard time getting signal a mere 30 or so feet away from the router in the next room. I had hoped to eliminate the older 802.11b signal/laptop altogether - but looks like I may hang on to the old girl a while longer yet.

I should have bought the 802.11g USB dongle a couple weeks ago for $10 when I saw it oh well.

 

You could build a groovy smoothwall box out of an old PC. You need 3 nic cards, one for the red interface, one for green, and one for the orange interface. You hook your cable modem to the red interface, your 802.11G router to the green interface, and the unencrypted 802.11b router to the orange. On a default smoothwall, orange cannot talk to green, but green can talk to orange. Any traffic originating from the orange network is stopped by the smoothwall before it reaches the green. Typically, you'd have web servers on the orange network, and the rest of the network (green) would be protected from it.

Goto www.smoothwall.org and do some reading Thier forums are a wealth of info.