Home Networking

I am often asked by both homeowners and general contractors what the pros and cons are related to paying for the installation of the infrastructure for traditional hard wired networks verses letting the homeowner simply buy the hardware needed to install their own wireless home network.

Please keep in mind that I do not claim to be an expert in the area of Home networking. I have been using networking in my home for several years and started with the simplest form of 2 computers connected via a phone line and using a dial up connection. Currently our network consists of a combination of 100 megabit wired connections and a wireless access point with a roaming laptop. Our internet connection is broadband supplied by Roadrunner. My experiences during the various upgrades and add ons in my own home and the documentation from the various home networking and home communication centers we have reviewed and installed is where I obtained this information.

What is a megabit?

First what is a bit. A bit is the smallest representation of data in a typical computer. it represents either a 0 or a 1. When 8 bits are combined as a binary string they form a byte. A byte represents one character such as the number 5 or the letter A. As a generalization it would take 4 bytes to represent a four character word like "BOAT". So a megabit would represent 1 million bits or 125,000 bytes or 31,250 four letter words. What can make this somewhat mind boggling is that these values are rated in megabits per second. So if 1 megabit transmission rates can move 31,250 4 letter words from one location to another in a network in one second then just imagine what going on when the speeds are some multiple of megabits. But please understand that a whole bunch of other computer control bytes must travel along with these words so even though 1 megabit sounds extremely fast for data movement much higher speeds are needed to cover the transmission baggage that goes along with it.

It might be a good time to discuss digital photographs. These photographs are simply special types of data files. Digital images have a bunch of "bytes" of data that are used for control purposes as to how the image is constructed for a computer monitor or printer. Each "Pixel" (the smallest dot of color a digital picture can have) requires about 3 bytes of data to describe it's color. The higher the number of Pixels per square inch of an image determines it's clarity and detail.

What is Sharing:

Sharing is the ability to make a resource of one computer on a network available to another computer on that network. The most common form of sharing is print sharing. Every computer user has a need to print something at some point in time and most need to print often. Having one printer in the household that can be used by multiple computers saves a little money and perhaps just as important some space at the computer locations.

Another very important use of sharing is Disk sharing. Many computer programs allow multiple computers on a network to access a program or it's database on a specific network computer. Our bookkeeping program is a good example of this. I can be sitting in my office creating invoices or estimates while Carol is in the sun room updating payables.

To me disk sharing has a much greater use than program access or interactive gaming. BACKUP, BACKUP, and BACKUP. Todays computers are probably one of the most reliable pieces of hardware in your home. However many of us become hugely dependent on them to store personal and business information. Even simple day to day things like loading digital images from a camera, receiving information from email, receiving electronic fax, scanning in documents for future use, or even playing an adventure game that is ongoing all store information on your computer hard drive. Now it may not be much concern to you if perhaps you have to bring your PC into a repair shop for a few days to get a CD player fixed or replace a power supply. But what if the hard drive goes bad or the data on your PC is needed by you daily.

Having a program that regularly takes the important data on each computer in the network and distributes it to other computers on the network could be a real stress reliever if your computer crashes or you accidentally delete important data. There is a whole lot more to be said about backup. I will leave that for another topic.

What is an ISP

"Internet Services Provider". Aol, Earthlink, Roadrunner... are ISPs

What is a Router

A router is a switching device that directs information to and from computers in a network. When you turn on a computer in a network the router automatically assigns the computer a unique identifier so that it can communicate with other computers in the network.

What is a LAN

"Local Area Network". For our purposes, All the computers in your home connected to a router are considered a LAN

What is a WAN

"Wide Area Network". When you connect your computer or router to a cable modem you are connecting to your ISP's Wide Area Network.

What is the WWW

"WORLD WIDE WEB". The internet is nothing more than hundreds if not thousands of computers around the world that are interconnected. There are a certain few that have specific responsibilities related to maintaining and updating tables that map the WEB. For instance, If your ISP added a computer to it's WAN then before this new computer and the domains on it would be addressable to the WEB these "control computers" would have to update and propagate their tables.

What is an IP address

"Internet Protocol" address. This is a computer's unique identifier on a network. It is also a unique identifier for your network when it connects to your ISP. The WWW reserves a range of IP addresses to be used on LANs. These IP addresses are not used within the WWW. Your WWW connecting hardware gets an IP address from your ISP and then magically shares that IP address with the computers on your LAN.

What is PEER to PEER

When a network is setup so that each computer can communicate with any other computer in the network or can get to the internet without going through the resources of another computer then that network is considered to be PEER to PEER.

What is Client/Server

Client/Server can be described as one computer being a server if it has a resource (a printer would be a good example) that another computer (a client) wants to use. The other description would be if your computer had to pass thru another computer to get to the internet. In this case the computer that "Owns" the Internet connection is the Server. Although this is a more restricting method of accessing the internet, it is sometimes used because the "Gateway program" on the server may offer a higher level of security to the network from attempts of some forms of internet hacking. 

Please Note that the following brief explanations about networks does not address a connection to the Internet. They simply discuss the LAN portion of a wired or wireless home network. Internet Access is discussed after networks.

Wired Networks

Wired networks are networks where a 8 conductor cable assembly currently called CAT 5 is installed from a central location in the home to the rooms in the home where a PC might be installed. To activate the network a item called a router is connected to these network jack cables at the central location. This router then becomes the traffic cop on the network and sees to it that information traveling from one computer to another is directed to the intended target. Theoretically Wired networks are capable of 100 megabit transmission speeds. In the practical world I doubt if 100 megabit transmission speeds have ever been achieved in a home network.

In a wired network only the users on the network can share the resources of the computers on the network. Responsible members of a network can be given read and/or write access to other network resources with or without password restrictions.

To connect a computer to a wired network the computer must have a "Network Interface Card" (NIC) installed. Most newer desktop, tower, and laptop computers have them installed during manufacturing. Although network jacks both on the wall and on the PC look like normal phone jacks, they are not. They are actually a little larger because wired network jacks require 8 individual contacts on the jack while a typical telephone jack only uses 2 or 4 contacts. If a PC does not have a NIC card they can be purchased for as little as 10 to 15 dollars (Laptop cards are about 2 or 3 times the cost) and installed by almost anyone. Some PC manufacturer's will void your warranty if you take the covers off the computer. If this is the case you should be able to purchase a NIC card that attaches to your PC externally via a "USB" port or find a service center for your PC manufacturer and have them install it.

Wired Networks are considered secure as long as a member of the network does not introduce a virus or worm by installing software or data from someone who may or may not know they are passing you bad file on a removable media. Of course accidental file deletes or hardware errors can always corrupt or destroy data on a drive in a network.

Wireless Networks

Flexibility is first and foremost the benefit of wireless LANs. Computers on a wireless network can be located pretty much anywhere you want in the house and Laptops can "Roam" from room to room.

Wireless Networking offers all the same bells and whistles of traditional wired networks, file and print sharing, internet sharing, and even interactive gaming.

However it offers these services at speeds that can be significantly slower than wired networks. The ranges of operation and the speeds that the wireless network hardwares boast are optimum under pristine conditions. Speeds taper off quickly as you not only move further physically from the Access point but even as you go behind wall configurations or change stories in the house. A wall is only 4 or so inches thick if you transmit directly through it to a wireless access point on the other side. However if the transmitted signal must go through that wall at an angle (Signals travel as more or less straight lines) then that wall becomes much "thicker" as far as the radio waves are concerned.

Metal studs, Brick exteriors, solid core or metal doors, foiled back insulation, and certain electrical equipment can all play a part in weakening the signal. The weaker the signal the slower the transmission speed.

To build a wireless network costs more in hardware but perhaps less overall when you consider the cost of the initial installation of the wiring for a wired network. Each computer that is going to attach to the network must have a "Wireless NIC". These are nothing more that NICs with trans/ceivers built in. Because they use radio waves to send your data they also have built in encryption generators. When these encryption generators are turned on transmission speeds may suffer considerable.

When 3 or more computers want to join a wireless network concurrently a "wireless Router" is required. From the industry point of view it is cost effective to build wireless routers as wired routers with a wireless access point added on. The assumption is that most home networks today may want a combination of a wired and a wireless network. Of course the addition of the wireless access point can raise the price of the router by as much as 100%

By default newly installed wireless networking systems are not as secure as Wired networks. Wireless Access points come out of the box with preset login passwords and generic defaults for PCs that want to connect to it. Until the person setting up the wireless network takes the time to understand and learn how to make the network secure any PC in the vicinity of the wireless access point typically can connect to your network and/or program you wireless access point. Once you setup and secure your network then you may decide that the information you are sending and receiving from a PC on the network is sensitive and you will want to encrypt it. This is going to slow down that PC's connection speed.

I would highly recommend that a family considering a wireless home network that might have the option of working from home via the internet, check with their employer to see if a wireless connection is acceptable.

Shared internet access

Before going any further a little good news. We have all heard an expression similar  to "A bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work". Well the good news is that even a slow and weak wireless signal is most likely faster than a very good broadband connection to the internet. If your internet browsing experience goes back a few years then perhaps you remember connecting at earth shattering speeds like 28k or on a great day you might even hit 56k. Well considering that a 56k connection is still 17 times slower than a 1 Megabit connection and the fact that the today's true broadband providers reach speeds up to 3-5 megabits (my roadrunner connection usually runs at little over 2.75 megabits) then chances are if your wireless PC has even a poor signal it is most likely running faster than your path to the WWW.

Adding a shared internet connection brings new security risks to any type of network while at the same time offers a great amount of value to the users on the network. These connecting points are typically called gateways or access points as they become the common point where your local area network (LAN) connects to your broadband connection or wide area network (WAN).

In the wired portion of this document I mentioned the router as being the central hub of the network. In the wireless area I noted that most wireless access points included wired network ports. Well the fact of the matter is that most routers for either wireless or wired networks have an "uplink" port. This uplink port is the router's "gateway" that lets you plug your broadband cable or DSL modem directly into your network. 

These gateways can be configured to various levels of security but even in their default setting provided a good amount of protection from intentional or random attempts by other WWW users to access your LAN unsolicited. They "hide" your computer from the WWW and only allow information you request from the WWW to pass thru to your computer. NOTE: They can not determine if the information you requested is harmful. They only say NO to information you did not request.

To obtain protection from bad stuff embedded in the information you request from the WWW you still need to have a good and current version of some "virus" software running on each PC in the network. Email downloads are the most common vehicle for viruses and worms to find a way to your computer and "Virus" software that is updated often will catch these viruses and worms 99% of the time.

My Opinion

Although I seemed to bash wireless networking a fair amount I am by no means saying it does not have a place in a home network. It is a valuable part of my own home network. It is just not the heart of my network. It is becoming more common that businesses, schools, and even hospitals are going to wireless systems. Heck our family doctor's office is wireless. Flexibility and the costs of installing wired networks in new commercial construction or remodeling make wireless attractive for end users but in most cases the heart of the network is still wired.

However when it comes to installing and setting up a wired network for a home those costs are probably less than many of the upgrade options a general contractor might offer on a new home. I am not trying to convince you to forget about better carpeting or nicer kitchen cabinets. I am only recommending that you look at the value of a wired network in your home today, think about what kinds of services that will eventually be offered via the internet of tomorrow, and what "Value add" a wired home network might be should you decide to sell your home someday.

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