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Home Networking Made Easy

It is rare today to find a home with only one TV, and computers are following the same trend. As the multi-PC home becomes more common, people are finding it is smart and cost-effective to have these computers networked and sharing resources. Internet access, printers, files and even applications can be shared between the household computers.

To join this club you will first need to build a simple home network. There are numerous ways to do this, and here we will briefly discuss three of the easiest methods, and their associated costs.

Wired - Twisted Pair
The least expensive method uses Cat 5 twisted-pair Ethernet cable to connect your computers. You will need a network card ($10-20) in each machine. If you have only two PCs to network, a single crossover cable (about 30 cents/foot) will do. With more PCs a hub is required ($20 and up, depending on the number of ports), and each PC will connect to the hub using a straight (not crossover) Cat 5 cable.

Wireless - 802.11B
Going wireless is the most convenient but also the most expensive. There are several wireless standards but the most common for home use is the WiFi or 802.11B standard, which uses a 2.4 GHz radio signal to connect as many as 50 computers. Its indoor range is 150 feet (or less, depending on walls and other barriers). The network will have a WAP or Wireless Access Point ($80-100), and each system needs a PCI WiFi interface card or an external USB WiFi device (each about $60). These devices are plug-n-play and easy to install, and of course there is no wiring to worry about.

Phone-line Networking
Another way to avoid most of the wiring hassles is to use your existing house phone wiring. The standard for this is Home PNA 2.0 (Phone Networking Alliance), and it enables the phone lines to carry LAN Ethernet data without interfering with the regular voice or fax signals on those lines. Each system will need a special PNA 2.0 Ethernet adapter, either PCI or external USB (about $50 either way). There will also be a cable from each adapter to a standard phone jack. This method costs less than WiFi and is just as easy, provided you already have phone jacks where you need them.

Now that the computers are networked, you need a Router/Gateway/Firewall to connect that network to the Internet. Today it is not hard to find a router for about $50 that includes the gateway and firewall functions, and maybe even a hub. This will save the cost of the hub if you're going with Cat 5 twisted pair. Better yet, for maybe another $30 you can get a router with built-in WiFi capability. Hunt around and you may find a router that includes a printer port too, making it easier to share a printer with all the systems.

On one side the router connects to the hub, or to each computer individually. On the other it connects to your DSL or broadband cable modem. Theoretically it could also connect to a dial-up line. However, trust me on this, now that your Internet connection is shared with everybody in the house, for the sake of family harmony you're going to want the fastest connection you can get.

Happy computing!