The Simple Home Networking Guide

Introduction

The days of cabled networks when computers at home would be connected to each other with the cables, which would hang along the walls, floorboards and near the ceiling have long gone. It's not that it affected too many people in its time -- the majority of families have had only one pc, so nothing to connect to anyway -- but it's good that that era is finally over. The change of the scenery arrived with the affordable wireless home networking. For less than 30 quid it is now possible to buy a very good wireless 2-in-1 modem + router device. Another 10 to 20 quid would buy you the wireless adapters -- they are needed to connect to the router wirelessly and voila (!) -- The home network is set up for a price of less than 50 pounds.

Some internet providers nowadays offer free wireless equipment to new customers in exchange for signing your up with them, so you can easily set up your network for free too (although during my life I've been persuaded many times that the free cheese can only be found in a mousetrap, so be careful if you encounter offers like that).

Wireless Signal and Devices

A couple of hints about wireless signal. I recommend putting the wireless device that emits the signal as far away from the people as possible because it is after all the microwave radiation we're talking about here. Despite the multiple studies that proved that it cannot do you any harm, it is wise and it pays still to be careful with this stuff as the humans still don't know everything about it. Definitely don't put it on the desk and below the desk very close to a computer user. The ideal place for it is in the centre of the house -- this is in order to achieve a better signal for receiver devices elsewhere around the house. If it's not possible, then the good locations would be near the window and on the wardrobe or cupboard closer to the ceiling.

Now let's clear some terminology. A "wireless router" is just a device that transfers the wireless signal. The router on it's own can be used to set up a wireless network among the computers that would talk to each other but without the access to the internet. In order to connect to the internet, a router should be connected to a modem. A modem is usually provided by an internet service provider.

A "wireless modem" can already contain a router in itself and these days it usually does. There are two main types of modems -- an ADSL modem and a cable modem. The former is used when the digital signal is passed through the phone line and the latter is used when there's a cable connection like in case of Virgin Media cable services. If you have a wired modem, then you will need to buy a wireless router in addition or a wireless modem in order to set up a wireless network at home.

Sometimes a wireless modem/router contains a firewall -- this is a hardware analogue of a software firewall program that is well-known to everyone since Windows XP Service Pack 2 when generic firewall to Windows OS was first introduced. The hardware firewall is much better than the software one and easily configurable usually according to a rule "let nothing in, let everything out". There are of course exceptions to this rule, and this is why the customisation of the firewall configuration may be required.

Wireless Device Setup

When it comes to the wireless network setup process, different wireless device manufacturers choose different ways to set up their devices. They could advice users to go directly to the wireless router utility or to follow setup wizard or may already have everything pre-configured before the initial setup. Some internet providers write their own utilities to ease the life of the customers who decide to set up the wireless network in their homes by themselves. But this sometimes leads to the very big confusion if setup suddenly doesn't work as there's no help available immediately and there are usually no help utilities.

I recommend following the manufacturer / internet provided setup process for the wireless modem / router and seeing what happens. In majority of cases everything goes smoothly. If it suddenly doesn't, the call to the customer services usually does the trick and sorts things out. If this in turn doesn't help, well, the call to a computer networking specialist would be required but this happens very rarely.

In order to initially set up the wireless device, at the beginning a computer must be connected to it through a cable. Then, when the network is up and running, the cable may be disconnected and the wireless fun can start.

On the other end, it is fairly easy to connect a computer wirelessly to the router. Firstly, one would need to install the drivers for the wireless adapter. Secondly, one would need to configure the wireless connection properties including the security. It is better to use Windows Network Configuration Utility rather than the one that comes with the adapter but it's a matter of choice. Don't forget that Windows XP Service Pack 2 does not support WPA2-PSK (you will read about this a bit later) because it is relatively new technology, so the update needs to be installed.

Wireless Device Location in the House

When selecting a location for the router, not only it's distance from the users and places in the house where people eat, sleep or spend a lot of time in should be considered, but also the distance to the other parts of the house. This is because the home router signal radius is not that great and diminishes substantially as the distance between the wireless router and the computer with a wireless adapter increases. A router's location should be comfortable enough for the computers with wireless connectivity to the network to be able to obtain the strong signal. If the signal is weak, the connection will not be stable and this will impact all applications that rely on the network connection. Be aware that the connection quality can vary depending on the weather and the other factors so monitor it after installation and make sure that it's stable enough. I'd say that average quality of the connection of 3 bars out of 5 is good enough. Ideally it should be 4 or 5 but 5 is rarely achievable if the computer is far away from the router.

Wireless Security

It's time now to talk about the security of your wireless connection. Security is a "must", there's no other word for it. It allows you to preserve your personal information, your documents, your habits and generally the information about your life because nowadays majority of people do everything with the help of computers and the internet. Never should the connection allowed to be an open connection without the protected access to the router. As you configure the router initially, you should consider setting the Wi-Fi security at the same time i.e. from the very beginning and never "afterwards". The best protection method at the time of this article writing was WPA2-PSK. WPA2 is an improved version of WPA. WEP should no longer used because of its weaknesses. PSK is a personal key, which you should enter and remember it in order to set the security for the other computers in the network. The key should contain as many characters as possible (up to 64) and should include letters and digits. The more complicated the PSK, the more difficult will be for a typical hacker to get access to the home computer network.

Remember to check your connection security details from time to time. If the router is not a top-notch, due to many reasons it occasionally may reset itself and all the passwords and custom settings will be lost including the wireless security details.

You don't need to switch the router off when all computers are down because nobody should be able to use the connection due to the security restrictions you've put in place.

Conclusion

Work and enjoy -- browse internet and play network games with members of your family in the bedroom, in the kitchen and in the garden. Access the files stored on the other computer or -- even better - in the wireless storage facility. Use one printer for all the computers. Even better if it is wireless itself, in this case its location is not restricted and you can put in anywhere in the house and easily access it from any computer in your local wireless network.

Wireless networks offer unlimited possibilities. In the near future it probably will be a hub for many devices in your house like fridge, television set, washing machine, oven, phones. You will be able to access all of them remotely and do a homework remotely too not actually being at home. And remember -- it has all started from the moment when that wireless router appeared in your house.