Many people are getting into wireless technologies today. It’s a no brainer; fewer cables, more freedom of computer location, portability, and security. I see a lot of people setting up a wireless network at home as well. If this seems a daunting task to you, I’m here to say that it’s not. Let’s take a look.
The very first thing you need is an Internet connection. Usually, this is already set up by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Dial-up, sorry to say, would not be the best type of connection, so you are going to have a tough time getting it to work. You really need to have a DSL or high-speed cable connection. For example, if you use Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner High-Speed Online, then you have a modem installed by Time Warner, and your PC that has the Internet connection in your home is connected to that by a Category-5 networking cable.
The second thing you need to look at is the wireless capability of the computers you currently have. Do they have wireless network cards installed? If you have a desktop PC, then the answer is probably no. If you have a newer laptop, it more than likely has a built-in wireless card. How do you check? Short of looking at the documentation that came with the computer, check the Network Connections section in Control Panel. You should see a wireless local area connection. Heck you can even look around on the outside of a laptop and see if it has a switch that turns on a wireless connection.
Now what needs to be done to get that desktop or laptop without wireless ready to roll for a wireless network? For that, you will have to install a wireless network adapter card. These can be purchased at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City, or online. They typically install in a white slot on your motherboard called a PCI slot in a desktop PC, and in the PCMCIA slot on laptops. PCMCIA cards are flat, credit-card sized devices that slide into a slot on the side of a laptop. Other wireless network adapter cards can plug directly into an available USB port. Now, it all depends on what you want to mess with. USB wireless cards will be the easiest to install. Personally, I recommend the internal card that installs in a PCI slot. You will have to crack open the PC, but if care is taken and the directions are followed, this is a fairly easy task. When purchasing a wireless network adapter card, I would recommend looking for one that is 802.11g compatible. 802.11 is simply a numbered standard for wireless technology developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE. 802.11n is out now as well, and it is an improvement over 802.11g when it comes to network data transfer speeds. 802.11n will no doubt be a little more expensive, but it is something you can consider.
Now you have your computers setup to connect to a wireless network. What’s the last thing you need? It is the wireless access point that all the PC’s can connect through. This would be a wireless router. There are many different brands such as Linksys, Netgear, Buffalo, and D-Link. They all are good choices and you can purchase them for around 50 dollars at any of the stores I mentioned before. The wireless router is the guy that will become the gateway for all of your wireless PC’s to use to connect to the Internet.
A wireless router will be connected to the Internet connection in your home. As far as placement goes, locating the router centrally in your home will be the best. But if you don’t have that luxury, install it where the Internet connection drops into your home. So if I use the previous example with Time Warner Cable, I would connect the Category-5 networking cable from the modem into my wireless router. There typically is a special port labeled “WAN” on the back of the router for this. The other ports on the back of the router can be used to connect any non-wireless device to you network. For example, if you want to plug your X-BOX 360 into the network with the Cat-5 cable, then connect it to one of these other ports on the router.
Once the router is in place and connected, you then will need to configure it and secure it. Most routers come with a CD-ROM that takes you step by step through this process. With a Cat-5 cable, which is usually supplied, you will plug in one of your PC’s directly to the router. Then using the CD-ROM you get the opportunity to name your wireless network (the SSID), configure an IP address range for your network, open up specific ports in the router (for a game maybe), and secure the router. Instructions that come with wireless routers these days typically are very good at explaining what to configure here and how to do it.
The most important thing to configure is security of your wireless network. Believe it or not, most routers you buy can be plugged in, turned on, and you are all set. But they are unsecured, meaning that someone driving by your home with a wireless laptop can see and connect to your wireless network. Then they are leeching off your Internet connection for free! This is notorious behavior in apartment complexes. To combat this, you want to look for security options that enable Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). WPA is the stronger and more secure of the two, but both will encrypt the information that is travelling back and forth in your wireless network. Also, they require a key, or password to connect to the network. This is the way you prevent others from gaining access. Without the key, an outsider is left with no choice but to try and guess it, or just give up. Make the key difficult to guess. There are other measures to take to protect your wireless network. You could look for options on your router that turn of the broadcast (or advertisement) of your wireless network, and you could also configure a list of computers that are the only ones allowed to connect to the network.
With a little money (usually under 100 dollars for most setups) and some minor configurations, you will be off to setting up and working with your new wireless network. I hope the information I provided in this blog will help you when deciding what to get, and what to do, when you feel it’s time to go wireless. If you run into any snags, don’t forget that the Internet is a huge help for researching problems, and there is always a tech support number to call for your wireless router. Good luck and have fun installing your new wireless network!
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