Lesson 1: Networking Hardware Explained
Male speaker: The center of your home network will be the Router. The Router connects your home network to the internet and allows not only sharing of internet access to all the computers on your network but also sharing the files and printers between the computers on your home network. The router connects your home network to the internet through your cable or DSL modem, this connection is made using an Ethernet cable which we will show in section two of the lessons. There are two types of routers wired and wireless.
Wired routers use Ethernet cables to connect to all of the computers. If you have all your computers in one room with the modem and the router this works out nicely. However most people have computer spread out all over their house and have one or more notebook computers that are moved around a lot. This makes using a wireless router a necessity. The cost difference between wired and wireless routers is almost non existent. So we recommend buying a wireless router.
Wireless routers are often referred to as Wi-Fi which is the generic name for a wireless network. There are two standards for wireless routers 802.11g and 802.11n also known as Wireless G and Wireless N. Wireless N is the latest standard and offers transfer speeds up to 100 mega bits per second compared to Wireless G's 25 mega bits per second. The Wireless N signal also covers more area than Wireless G. With Wireless G you can pick up the network signal on a computer around a 100-150 ft. from the router and connect to the network, Wireless N doubles this range to 200-300 ft. Wireless N will be the future standard but the cost to set up a Wireless N network is almost double that of Wireless G. You can get a Wireless G router for around $50 and a Wireless N router for around $80.
To connect your computers to the home network you will need network adapters. For a computer located next to the wireless router you can use a wired connection. Almost all wireless routers come with four wired connections called Ethernet ports, most computers have an Ethernet port built in. Any computer in the same room as the router should connect using a wired Ethernet connection this will save you money because you don't need to buy wireless adapters for these computers. In Section II we will show you how to connect a wired computer to the router using an Ethernet cable.
If the computer doesn't have a network adapter built in, you can buy one separately since you are buying an adapter go ahead and get a wireless one this will make it easy to move the computer to another part of the house in the future should you need to. For your desktop computers located around the house there are a few options for buying wireless adapters, you can get one that goes inside the computer and into an open PCI or PCI Express expansion slot or one that plugs into an available USB port on the front or back of the computer's case. A USB port wireless adapter is much easier to install. You just plug the adapter into a USB port, the PCI or PCI Express expansion card installation is a till more involved because you have to open the computer's case. We show how to install a wireless PCI card in Section II.
USB and PCI card wireless adapters start at around $20 for Wireless G and Wireless N adapters start at around $40. PCI wireless cards will usually have better signal reception than USB wireless adapters depending on how far away the computer is from the router and whether you choose to use the G or N standard this may not make a difference but it is something you need to be aware of. Any notebook computer made in the last three years should have both an Ethernet and Wireless G adapter built in. If you choose get a Wireless N router you can get a Wireless N adapter for your notebook that will go into the PC card, Cardbus, or Express Card slot depending on which expansion slot your notebook has. These adapters start at around $50 for both Wireless G and Wireless N standards.
The Wireless G adapter in your notebook will work with a Wireless N router, you will still get the greater coverage of the Wireless N standard, the speeds won't be up to Wireless N standards but it might increase a little bit because of the stronger signal, the Wireless N router puts out. Before you pay for a new Wireless N adapter for all your notebook computers it's a good idea to try using the built in Wireless G adapter and see how the speed feels to you when you are using the computer then upgrade the adapter to Wireless N only if you need to.
So do you need Wireless N's faster speed and increased range it all depends on how you want to use your home network and how much signal coverage you need to fit your home. The speed of Wireless G is more than enough to match the fastest cable and DSL modem, you won't to see any improvement in your internet speed if you use a Wireless N network. Wireless G is fast enough to transfer files between computers to not feel sluggish moving smaller amounts of files or for sharing a printer, unless you often need to copy several gigabytes of data from one computer to another Wireless G should be sufficient.
On the other hand if you know you want to copy large amounts of files between computers or do things like stream DVD or high def movies across the network to watch on your TV, Wireless N is what you need. The range of Wireless G is enough to cover a large house, as long as the router is close to the center of the house, if the modem and therefore the wireless router is on one end of the house and you want to use a computer on your home network on the other end of the house Wireless N's range might be needed. A possible work around for this is to stay with a cheaper Wireless G standard and get a wireless access point or bridge to extend the network's coverage to the other side of the house. These wireless access points are fairly expensive starting at around $70, if you add that to the price of the Wireless G router the cost advantage of Wireless G disappears quickly. Next in Lesson 2 we're going to talk about choosing your router and wireless network adapters, where to buy them and how much to pay.
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