If you're planning on getting on XBL on your home wireless network, there's a couple of ways you can get connected for free. All you need is: 1. A laptop or PC running Windows XP or Vista with a standard RJ-45 network port and a wireless network interface card. 2. A regular ethernet or crossover cable. 3. A wireless router (obviously). Now there's two ways that you can do this, one involves using Windows Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), the other using a network bridge. I'll start with the simpler of the two. ----------Windows ICS Method---------- Connect your ethernet cable into the back of your 360 and into the network port on your laptop (your laptop must be on and you must already be connected to your wireless router). Go to start >> control panel >> network connections. Right click on your wireless connection icon, go to properties and then the Advanced tab. Check the box that says "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection." Do the same for our Local Area Connection now. Once it's done right click one of the icons (it doesn't matter because you'll have to do both local and wireless), go to properties and then on the general tab, scroll down to find the TCP/IP checkbox, highlight it and then hit the properties button. Check the radio button that says use the following IP address. For the IP portion type: "192.168.0.1" For the subnet mask use "255.255.255.0". You should be able to get away with leaving the rest blank but if you must know, your default DNS server will be the same as the default host address (192.168.0.1). At this point you'll want to do the exact same steps except on the other connection you haven't done. Once that is over with, turn on your 360, go to the System window, and then click on Network Settings >> Test Xbox Live Connection. All of the tests should go through now (IP, MTU, ICMP, etc.) and you should be good to go. However, if you find that all the tests work but Xbox Live still fails, then you need to get admin access to your wireless router. If you don't know the address, go to start >> run >> and type "cmd" then hit enter. Type "ipconfig" in the command prompt and hit enter. Then look for the address next to "Default Gateway"and that will be your router's address. Type that into your browser's address bar (at this point I will assume you have administrative privalages to your router), and try port forwarding. Use google if you don't know what port forwarding is...FFS, I'm not going to explain it here. Congratulations, once all this is done and your connection tests go through, you can connect to Xbox Live through your laptop! ----------Network Bridging Method---------- If the Windows ICS method failed due to an IP conflict on your router and you don't have admin access to it (which was my problem), then this should work for you. Granted, it can be a little more complicated so follow the steps closely. Start by connecting your ethernet (or crossover) cable into the back of your 360 and into the network port on your laptop just like in the ICS method. You'll notice that your LAN icon will now connect instead of saying cable unplugged. Open your Network Connections through Start >> Control Panel >> Network Connections. Right click and drag your mouse across both your wireless connection and your local area connection. When you release the mouse, click on Bridge Connections on the menu that pops up. It will take a couple seconds for a bridge to be created and connect. If nothing seems to happen, congratulations, check your Xbox Live connection because you're pretty much done. Chances are likely though that you get disconnected from the internet, even though you're still connected to the router. If that is the case, then you'll need to open up your command prompt and type in: "netsh bridge show adapter" and then hit enter. You will notice one of two things: 1. Your Local Area Connection will have the "enabled" status, but your wireless is disabled. 2. Both connections show the "unknown" status. If the first case is true, then skip to the next paragraph. If you get the unknown status, the problem is that your NIC is not broadcasting in promiscuous mode. This can be solved however by forcing the NIC into compatibility mode using netsh. In order to do this, type into the command prompt: "netsh bridge set adapter * forcecompatmode=enable", where the * is the ID number of your NIC listed when you first did netsh bridge show adapter (mine was 2, yours will probably be 1). Next, you will need to type in the command prompt: "netsh bridge set a * e" exactly as shown except that the * again represents the ID of your wireless NIC. Your laptop should now automatically re-connect to the internet. To check the status of your connections again type: "netsh bridge show adapter" If all is well, both your wireless and LAN connection should show the "enabled" status. Last step is to check your Xbox Live connection. On your 360 dashboard swap to the System panel >> Network Settings >> Test Xbox Live connection. Run the program and if all tests are successful, you are now ready to connect to Xbox Live!