Engin voicebox (Sipura SPA 3102) sharing WiFi via LAN cable to Windows 7 laptop

My laptop has wireless and LAN. I only need the wireless.

My Engin 3102 voicebox (a re-badged Sipura SPA something-or-other) has LAN, but not wireless.

What if I want to run my VoIP over wireless?

OK, ok, if you can, it's simplest to just plug the voicebox directly into your broadband router.

But what if, for whatever reason, you can't, or don't want to?

Turns out, it is possible to plug the voicebox into the laptop via the LAN port, and have the voicebox piggy-back on the laptop's WiFi connection.

You beauty!

Apparently in Windows XP you can do it through Internet Connection Sharing.

I have Windows 7 Ultimate, and whilst I enabled Internet Connection Sharing, I never managed to get the voicebox to work through the laptop that way.

After more digging, I discovered that bridging network connections was the trick I needed.

Open Control Panel, go to Network And Sharing Center, then on the left-hand-side, choose the "Change adapter settings" option.

This will list all of your network adapters, including your LAN and WiFi adapters.

Select both (click on one, then ctrl-click the other), then right-click on either of the selected two and a menu gives an option to bridge the adapters.

Voila! It was that easy!

However, apparently if you have previously enabled Internet Connection Sharing, you'll need to disable it first - apparently it is incompatible with bridged network adapters.

So now I can have my voicebox and phone handset right near my laptop, up the other end of the house, far away from the router and without running cables through the house.

Nice.