A home wireless network is very attractive from the point of view that there are no long cables between the computers that may look ugly in the home environment or require extensive work to hide them in trunking or under floors. Another advantage is the ability to connect with mobile devices such as a cell phone or laptop.
Disadvantages include possible interference from other networks or devices, vulnerability to hacking, difficulty with configuration, and range of coverage.
Because your PC is unlikely to contain a wireless adapter, you will need to purchase a wireless router. This interfaces your Internet access box to the PC and network. The Internet box connects to the WAN (Wide Area Network) input port and your PC is connected from it's LAN (Local Area Network) port to one of the LAN ports of the router.
The router will include a configuration utility that displays a control panel in a web browser window. Typically this will be found at the web address: http://192.168.0.1 Using this utility you may enter the settings for example, wireless network name, encryption method, password and channel number.
To set up the computers to connect to the Internet, it's easiest to run the Internet connection wizard in Windows.
The 2 current popular types of wireless router are wireless-N and wireless-G with N being significantly faster than G, although in most cases, wireless-G is adequate and lower cost.
Wireless-N has an extended number of available channels over wireless-G so it can avoid the channel congestion to improve performance of your network. Devices such as microwave ovens can cause interference to wireless-G networks requiring adjustment of the channel to lessen the overlap.
For best network security it is recommended to configure your router to use WPA encryption.
In summary, home wireless network setup entails connecting your PC via a LAN cable to a router which in turn connects to your Internet access box. Then the router is set up via a control panel with the encryption and password etc. Then the Internet connection wizard is run on each PC and laptop in the network.
Disadvantages include possible interference from other networks or devices, vulnerability to hacking, difficulty with configuration, and range of coverage.
Because your PC is unlikely to contain a wireless adapter, you will need to purchase a wireless router. This interfaces your Internet access box to the PC and network. The Internet box connects to the WAN (Wide Area Network) input port and your PC is connected from it's LAN (Local Area Network) port to one of the LAN ports of the router.
The router will include a configuration utility that displays a control panel in a web browser window. Typically this will be found at the web address: http://192.168.0.1 Using this utility you may enter the settings for example, wireless network name, encryption method, password and channel number.
To set up the computers to connect to the Internet, it's easiest to run the Internet connection wizard in Windows.
The 2 current popular types of wireless router are wireless-N and wireless-G with N being significantly faster than G, although in most cases, wireless-G is adequate and lower cost.
Wireless-N has an extended number of available channels over wireless-G so it can avoid the channel congestion to improve performance of your network. Devices such as microwave ovens can cause interference to wireless-G networks requiring adjustment of the channel to lessen the overlap.
For best network security it is recommended to configure your router to use WPA encryption.
In summary, home wireless network setup entails connecting your PC via a LAN cable to a router which in turn connects to your Internet access box. Then the router is set up via a control panel with the encryption and password etc. Then the Internet connection wizard is run on each PC and laptop in the network.
About the Author:
Find a low cost router at the wireless networking store, then read Troy Williams's tutorial wireless network tutorial.
No comments:
Post a Comment