Adventures in networking start with picking design
By DWIGHT SILVERMAN
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
When it comes to home networking, nothing's as maddening as setting one up for the very first time. Unless, of course, you count setting one up for the second time.
I recently relocated from Houston's distant suburbs to the furiously beating heart of the city. My family traded a two-story brick house adjacent to Hewlett-Packard's wooded campus for a three-story stucco townhome near Montrose.
I also traded a structure prewired with network cable for one that is not. When we built the burbhouse in 1996, I had Ethernet wiring run from two of the upstairs bedrooms down to the first-floor home office.
Although our new home was built more recently, in 1998, it was not prewired. I had to rethink how the network was designed and get everything working to the satisfaction of my "customers," who would whine without mercy if the experience here wasn't as solid as it was there.
In the process, I've learned a lot, and over the next four weeks, I'll share it with you. February's Computing columns will detail my adventures in networking, with a goal toward helping you avoid some mistakes I made.
I began by looking at the layout of my new home and pondering the pros and cons of home networking technologies.
• Ethernet wiring. In a perfect world, a wired network is the best. It's fast, reliable, secure and inexpensive. It's also relatively simple to set up — at least, getting wired computers to talk to each other is simple. Getting cables from one computer to another is not.
I had the perfect scenario with my previous home, in which I was able to have the builder add cabling before the drywall went up. Once built, though, running cables through walls is a major project.
If you've got a single story, pier-and-beam home, just route the cables under the floor. On a slab foundation, you can go through the attic. But add a second story, and things get a lot more complicated.
With three stories ... be afraid. Be very afraid.
I was hoping to use Ethernet wiring for the two computers in our third-floor home office. But the room's loft configuration — with a doorway breaking one wall and a stairwell another — combined with the placement of the cable modem meant I'd either have to run cable under wall-to-wall carpeting or around a door frame. The aesthetic horror was too much to bear.
Reluctantly, scratch Ethernet.
• POWER LINE/PHONE LINE. Two of the most intriguing home networking technologies use the phone and electrical wiring already in a home. It's a great idea because even older homes usually have a phone jack and several electrical plugs in each room.
But there are drawbacks to HomePNA, the phone line variety, and HomePlug, the electrical type.
Neither is as fast as Ethernet and, in some cases, wireless networking. Ethernet typically runs at 100 megabits a second, although new Gigabit Ethernet hits speeds of 1,000 mbps. The 802.11g version of WiFi wireless networking runs at 54 mbps, and some manufacturers have tweaks that can theoretically double that.
HomePNA maxes out at 10 mbps, while HomePlug's speed is 14 mbps. A faster, 128 mbps version of HomePNA has been approved by that group's standards committee, but products supporting it are nowhere to be found.
If all you want to do over a network is share an Internet connection, 10 and 14 mbps connections are fine. After all, the maximum rate of most broadband Internet services is well under those speeds. But if you share audio and video files over a home network, as I do, you'll need more bandwidth.
In addition, HomePlug makes me — and a lot of other PC users — a little nervous. The idea of plugging a network adapter into a 120-volt socket doesn't sit well with me. Lightning strikes, power surges and "dirty" current give me the willies.
Scratch phone line & power line networking.
• WIRELESS. While wireless, or WiFi, networking has a lot to recommend it, there are also a lot of downsides.
No, you don't have to drill through walls, and it's relatively fast. But walls and speed remain issues.
A wireless network uses radio frequencies in the 2.4-gigahertz range to transmit data between computers. The design of 802.11g, the most cost-effective form of WiFi, allows for 11 channels within that range.
Unfortunately, other devices also use that spectrum, including cordless phones and microwave ovens. And all but three of WiFi's 11 channels overlap each other, so a neighbor's wireless network could conflict with yours.
Finally, the speed and reliability of a wireless network connection decreases over distance and drops even more when it must pass through physical barriers. My new home's design dictated that the cable modem and the wireless router had to be on the third floor. I wanted the connection to reach through two floors and a wall to the first floor.
There are other flavors of WiFi that avoid some of these headaches, but they're either more expensive (such as 802.11a) or not yet widely available (802.11n).
Would distance and interference be an issue in this new house? I decided to conduct a little test.
Before we moved our furniture in, I brought a wireless router and a WiFi-enabled notebook computer to the new digs. I set the router up on the third floor and began roaming around the townhouse with the notebook, checking signal strength.
I found not only could I get a usable signal on the first and second floors, but I also could connect sitting outside on a tiny patio. Visions of contemplating the urban landscape while checking e-mail and finding new neighborhood restaurants danced in my head.
Wireless it is.
Next: Making the dream a reality.
RESOURCES
Home computer users setting up a network can choose from several technologies. Here are the pros and cons:
Wired Ethernet
Uses cables to connect computers and other devices. Each device requires a network adapter, with cabling leading to a router, hub or switch. • Pros: Fast (between 10-1,000 megabits per second), secure, inexpensive, reliable. Easiest to set up in PC and Mac software.
• Cons: Requires physical wires between computers, which can be costly, labor intensive and potentially destructive to property.
Phone line and power line
Uses existing telephone and electrical wiring to link computers. Each networked device requires an adapter that plugs into the phone or power network. • Pros: Simple to install — just plug into the appropriate jack or plug — and convenient. Relatively secure.
Cons: Not as fast as wireless or wired Ethernet, at 10 and 14 Mbps. (Faster 128 Mbps phone line networking standard is approved, but products aren't out yet.) In buildings with shared electrical circuits, security may be an issue.
Wireless or WiFi
Uses radio frequencies to transmit data between computers and other devices. Each networked devices requires a wireless transmitter/receiver.
• Pros: Devices can be placed anywhere, without regard to wires. Easy to physically set up. Fast, at 11-108 Mbps.
• Cons: Signal degrades with barriers and distance. Most common WiFi networking type subject to interference from 2.4 gigahertz cordless phones and neighboring networks. Can be costly and difficult to configure on some computers.
HoustonChronicle.com - Computing: Networking starts with design
