The Basics of a Home Wireless Network
Setup and configuration of a home wireless network is not a very difficult task. Although, we need the appropriate devices and some basic knowledge. All the devices that will connect to the wireless network must have a wireless network card. Usually laptops and PDAs have the wireless card on-board or if they don’t, we can add a network card attaching it to a PCMCIA slot.
For desktop computers we can install a network card using a PCI slot or we can use the USB port. USB network cards have become very popular because it’s very easy to install them to PCs.
In our wireless network probably we will use an access point. Access point plays the exact same role that a traditional hub plays in a wired network. The client, having a wireless network card communicates with the access point requesting an IP address. Access point acts as a DHCP server and provides the client with an IP address, subnet mask and other information like DNS.
In the market we can find a great variety of access points. Some of them only serve as access points and some other are a combination of an access point and a broadband router for us to connect to the internet via a DSL line.
Some wireless access points come with a build-in 4 or 8 ports switch. This Ethernet switch allows us to create and combine our two networks, the wired and the wireless.
WIRELESS STANDARDS
Before you buy wireless devices, check the wireless standard that they support. Different standards often confuse the non IT people. Few years ago the wireless standard 802.11b was popular. It is one of the first wireless standards that came out to the market and operates at 2,4GHz. Even if the speed of 802.11b did not exceed 11Mbps, today some wireless devices are still using it.
The wireless standard 802.11a was a competitor of 802.11b as it gives a speed of 54Mbps but operates at 5GHz. This means that, the higher the frequency a network device is using, the sorter the scope of the signal is, making us able to use this technology only for short distance communication.
The distance limitation with 802.11a is approximately 9 meters.
The successor of 802.11b is 802.11g. This standard is compatible with the older 802.11b and supports speeds up to 54Mbps without distortion of the signal. 802.11g is the most used standard nowadays.
| Wireless Standard | Data Rate | Frequency |
| 802.11b | 11 Mbps | 2,4Ghz |
| 802.11a | 54 Mbps | 5Ghz |
| 802.11g | 54 Mbps | 2,4Ghz |
Ok, so now you know the basics of wireless networking. In one of my next articles I will analyze the steps that need to be followed in order to create a wireless network ad-hoc or infrastructure.
An ACL will also be necessary to stop wardriving (the act/art of finding unprotected wireless networks allowing total strangers to use your Internet connection anonymously for whatever purposes they want - could lead to piracy, child pornography, etc). An ACL is an access control list that would be set up and configured on your router and it would manage what is and what is not allowed, I’m sure you can write a tutorial on it.
Thank you for the comment, it will be one of our next articles for sure. Readers telling us what they want to read next, is our best source of feedback.