AH64:
The internet has always been a two way link. Dial up modems, apart from the very earliest models, were symmetric, thus 56k in each direction. Going upstream from your PC are your requests and responses to queries from any connected PCs (I do not want to get too techy here, but this can include things you may not want such as cookie details and malware reporting home
). Hence the importance of functioning firewalls which limit what can and cannot connect to your PC.
Aside from speed, off the top of my head, 80211g has somewhat improved security protocols.
To make wep work both the router and the laptop must use the same key. My wifi pc is currently u/s, so I cannot give you a step by step guide at the moment. But after setting up the router you need to copy the key onto the laptop.
All the best
EG