Networking is a funny thing. The consumer market is getting to the point where it's almost required, and yet for many it still remains a mysterious thing, filled with hoodoo and magic.
The proliferation of broadband, wireless devices, Bluetooth, VoIP and multi-player gaming means that more and more we're hooking devices together to transfer files, information and simply communicate with one another. Here's a basic primer on the equipment you'll need, and a run-down on what everything means for the first time network builder.
At the heart of most networks is a router -- a device that communicates with all other devices connected to it, and allows them to communicate with each other. The devices are usually connected via Ethernet cable (also called network cable), or increasingly, wireless connections.
These days it's not uncommon to purchase routers with built in ADSL modems, which also have wireless functionality, on average four Ethernet ports and VoIP ports. This leads to easy Internet sharing from the one connection. They also tend to have built-in firewalls with extra security features, making a router a good value proposition.
Devices known as switches are also available. Unlike a router these don't have any configuration options, and can't automatically manage devices -- however if you've already got one router, a switch is a cheap way to expand your network and still have everything managed automatically.
While we recognise that the broadband aspect of this equation isn't available to everyone, it really does help in terms of expanding your network, and increasing the number of things you can do online.
The most reliable and high speed way to connect to a network, the humble network cable is also one of the cheapest. These days Cat5e cable will allow you to achieve gigabit speeds (within the limitations of your connected devices. In a lot of cases the speed of gigabit transfers can be limited by the write speed of your hard drives!). Unlike wireless, cables don't suffer from external interference, and it takes a heck of a lot of distance to start losing signal quality.
It has one down side -- cables everywhere, whether they be blue, black, grey, yellow or red. The truly serious wire their house internally and have access points installed in the walls -- most others will opt for wireless.
The concept of wireless networking itself isn't that hard -- your device can communicate with your router or access point without using wires, allowing you to roam freely. Setting up a wireless network in the home though is quite possibly the most daunting aspect of networking for consumers. While it's slowly getting easier, there's still a number of standards and encryption mechanisms you need to deal with before you get the optimal solution -- we're not in a "push button and it works" type scenario just yet.
Wireless isn't as fast as good old fashioned network cable when it comes to transferring data, but it's still more than fast enough for Internet and streaming standard definition video to your laptop or wireless enabled device (like an iPod Touch) as you wander around the house.
Setting up a wireless network needn't be a huge chore though -- you might want to check out our tutorial here if you intend to do so. Make sure you enable security, specifically WPA2!
Most laptops these days are equipped with 802.11n network capability, otherwise known as Draft N -- and even if you own an older laptop without wireless, it's easy enough to pick up an expansion card that will do the job for you. While 802.11n theoretically offers greater speed and range than the previous 802.11g standard, 802.11g is still the most used format in the consumer market.
The good news is network adaptors are backwards compatible, meaning an 802.11g certified device will quite happily chat to an 802.11b device, and an 802.11n device will talk to both g and n, and as a bonus will also communicate with 802.11a (which some older g or b devices will not). These all work in the 2.4GHz range, the same frequency that your cordless phone and several other devices work at, meaning they may suffer from interference.
The odd one out is 802.11a, which operates at 5GHz, making it good where high levels of interference are present. While 802.11a enjoys a good life in the corporate world as a result, it will likely be supplanted by the final specification of 802.11n, which allows dual-band access -- meaning it can operate in both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz space.
It's worth noting that you will never attain top speeds quoted on wireless networking gear. While 802.11a and g are rated at 54Mbps, you'd be lucky to see it hit 24, and while b is rated at 11Mbps it struggles to get past five. A good rule of thumb is to basically halve the maximum theoretical speed, and you'll get a more realistic idea of the data throughput. It's not entirely a lie, it's still the maximum throughput of the device -- it's just that the rest is lost in headers, lost and resent transmissions.
Wireless outside the home
Wireless also brings to life the concept of the hot spot -- a public area where you can get access to free Internet, thanks to a wireless router hooked up to a net connection. These are often set up around big coffee chains like Starbucks, as well as a large number of McDonalds stores. City-wide wireless is being trialled in many places, and in conjunction with femtocells, HSDPA and WiMax the all-pervasive Internet might become reality. There's a decent list of hot spots maintained over at Whirlpool, and you may want to check out free-hotspot.com, wififreespot.com and wifi411.com as well.
You might have heard about WiMax -- this is a high range wireless standard that's mostly used for broadband Internet access where ADSL or cable can't be rolled out, particularly in rural areas. It is however also being pushed into densely populated areas as a competitor to HSDPA -- so it will be interesting to watch where it heads. It needs specialised hardware to run -- your standard wireless adaptor in your laptop can't access it. Intel is a big supporter of WiMax, and has put a lot of money into local company Unwired to make it happen, so expect it to start turning up in laptops as standard in a little while. For now, WiMax is out of the scope of this article.
| Standard | Theoretical data rate (Mbps) | Range indoor/outdoor (metres) | Frequency and interference risk | Hot-spot access |
| Network cable | 1,000 | 100 | Negligible | None |
| Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR | 3 | 1-100, depending on power supplied | 2.4GHz; High | Poor |
| 802.11a | 54 | 25/75 | 5GHz; Low | Poor |
| 802.11b | 11 | 35/100 | 2.4GHz; High | Good |
| 802.11g | 54 | 25/75 | 2.4GHz; High | Excellent |
| 802.11n | Currently 300, expected to reach 600 | 50/125 | 2.4GHz; High/5GHz; Low | Fine, due to backwards compatibility |
The wireless equivalent of an extension cord, a wireless access point simply allows you to expand your wireless range a little wider by using the wonders of bog-standard Ethernet cable hooked up to your router. Some will also act as repeaters, meaning it can communicate wirelessly with your router, and simply amplify the signal so there's more coverage -- although it's certainly possible to buy just repeating stations. Most full fledged wireless routers will also allow switching between router and access point mode, and so you can have multiple routers operating within the one environment.
Depending on your set-up, some laptops/expansion cards/wireless routers/access points will allow you to attach additional, more powerful antennas to extend your range. Simple as that!
A homeplug adaptor will simply plug into a power point and use your power lines to transfer data. You need two of them to complete a circuit, and at either end Ethernet cable is used to connect them to the rest of the network. This is especially useful if your house is the sort that doesn't lend itself to wireless signals. Unfortunately the homeplug's total speed can be affected by how clean your electrical wiring is, how much noise is on the line, and whether or not the two homeplugs are on the same circuit. While these days homeplugs are rated at 200Mbps, expect 85Mbps tops, although most will rarely see this. If you're buying homeplugs, make sure to get the same brand, as they often won't talk to others, and try and avoid putting them in powerboards or anything that might cause havoc with the signal.
Usually used for short range, one-to-one connections, Bluetooth nonetheless has a range of anywhere up to 100 metres (depending on the class of device it is, and how much power is being pumped through), and tends to be used for transferring files from PDAs/Mobile phones to other Bluetooth enabled devices, for wireless headsets, graphics tablets, printers, cameras, keyboards and mouses.
A virtual private network or VPN. Sometimes this can be done in hardware, sometimes in software. It is a secure mechanism for connecting over the Internet to a remote network -- for instance, using your Internet at home to connect to your work Intranet.
Voice Over IP (VoIP) is, in a nutshell, using the Internet to make phone calls. VoIP has yet to hit massive penetration in Australia, but it's doing its fair share of business. A lot of calls these days are technically VoIP and the consumer doesn't even know it, as telecommunications companies opt to use the cheaper Internet infrastructure to transfer voice data rather than by traditional means.
A lot of modem/routers come with VoIP ports these days. If you're lucky enough to be in an area with ADSL2+ that's not supplied by Telstra, then there's the possibility that your ISP offers naked DSL -- that is, you can stop paying line rental to Telstra altogether, and use your ISPs VoIP solution as a much cheaper phone option instead.
Pretty simple this one! Certain printers can be printed to over the network so multiple users can access them at once. While traditionally this has meant wiring the printer into the network directly, these days many routers come with a USB port and will act as a print server, meaning you can use a standard USB printer instead.
This is great as an interim solution, but keep in mind that not every printer will work with every given router (or dedicated print server for that matter), and many only allow one client to access the printer at a time rather than setting up a universal queue. You could set up a printer attached to a PC and share it across the network to avoid this, but this means the PC it's attached to will have to be on whenever anyone else wants to print. In short, the most elegant solution is a printer that already has network support.
Network Attached Storage (NAS) is starting to make inroads into the consumer market. It is exactly as it reads -- storage that's attached to your network. Usually this takes the form of a unit that can store one or more hard drives, with access to redundancy to make sure your data stays safe. It's a great way to keep files permanently stored across your network, and if you use RAID 1 or 5 as most offer, you can protect that data against hard drive failure too.
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Ken
03/03/2008 03:54 PM
Am I glad I joined Cnet and receive your daily newsletter!! Having recently purchased a very up to date ASUS notebook and needing the wireless situation to access the internet, I had been researching everywhere to get some information about wireless networking. I had obtained some info but when I saw this article I could not believe how timely and the way it plainly set out what I needed to know. Thanks so much, everyone at Cnet!!
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22/03/2008 08:19 AM
Cnet really contributed very well in wireless area of working. I am impressed that how fine wireless internet functions are described.
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