ComputorEdge - Setting Up Your Home Network: Design your network for optimum speed and performance.

Setting Up Your Home Network
“Design your network for optimum speed and performance.”
by Jack Dunning

While home networks in the form of Internet sharing are commonplace, they will be even more important in coming years. They will become part of our computing life a piece at a time. As people want to do more with their networks, many will find that theirs may not be up to the task. With a little bit of planning, you can be ready for most of the network demands coming in the near future.

Driving the demand for better home networks will be the network hard drive—either in the form of a home entertainment DVR or a hard drive shared by everyone. Once people become accustomed to the idea that the system involves every computer and peripheral in the house, then thinking about the whole will be natural. While looking at building a network, there are a few concepts that need to be considered.

Only as Fast as the Slowest Link

Often, people will complain about equipment being slow, especially network hard drives, because the network is slow. It's important to understand that everything will throttle to the speed of the slowest interface in the system, Therefore, a hard drive plugged into a 2.0 USB port may appear to be faster than a drive being read over a 100-megabit network, because it is. The USB 2.0 port is capable of speeds up to 480 megabits per second (mbps). The network hard drive offers much greater transfer speeds than either of these connections, but it is limited by either the network or the USB port. If you truly wanted to take advantage of the network hard drive's capabilities, then you will need a faster network—one gigabit.

One-gigabit-per-second networks are the next step in wired network computing. Gigabit network cards and routers are dropping in price and are becoming the new standard. However, in order to take advantage, each card, router and device in the round trip needs to have the gigabit capability. If two computers are communicating over the network (transferring files, running program, etc.), then both network cards, the router, and the network cable all must have gigabit specifications. If a network is upgrading, each piece in that network will meet the higher requirements.

Many new computers are sold ready for faster networks, both wired and wireless. To determine if yours is one of them, in Windows check the name of the card in the Device Manager. The Ethernet card should either say gigabit or 1000baseT. A wireless card should specify 802.11n. If you can't find an indication in the Properties window of the device, then do a Google search on the product name and model.

The procedure for checking out your router is the same. There is one caution, as many routers support both the hard-wired Ethernet and Wi-Fi. You will be looking for both the 802.11n Wi-Fi and the 1000baseT Ethernet. Just because a router advertises one of those features does not mean that the other is supported. The term "gigabit" is thrown around pretty loosely. I recommend that you get both of the higher speeds—even if you think you will be using only Wi-Fi for now.

Is Wi-Fi the Future?

Since it is so easy to set up a Wi-Fi network (no cabling is needed), people tend to think that wireless is all they will ever need. There is no doubt that Wi-Fi has become the major player in home networks. It is difficult to imagine a network without some sort of wireless. Wireless networks are easy to set up—no Cat-5 or 6 cabling required. It is easy to connect when traveling. It is so easy that we tend to think that soon everything will be wireless.

However, wireless also has a downside. It is less reliable and more susceptible to interference. Wireless connections drop signals much more often than their wired Ethernet counterparts. Wi-Fi specifications are slightly slower than the current Ethernet standard. (This is based upon comparing 1000baseT, one gigabit, with 802.11n Wi-Fi, 600 megabits. Both of these are maximum rates that will vary based upon numerous factors. It's estimated that the average Wi-Fi throughput could be as little as 100mbps.) Wireless by its nature is less secure—anyone can pick up the signal.

802.11n Wi-Fi is just now in the market on a wide scale. You will see that they are often marked "(draft 2.0)." This means that they have been certified to the 802.11n standard, even though the standard itself will not be ratified until January of 2010. The Draft 2.0 Certified products are the devices that will work with the specification in the future. It is a little sketchier with products that just say 802.11n.

In most cases, Wi-Fi will be the future of the home network. Even though there is greater capacity with the one-gigabit Ethernet, the hassle of running cables may not be worth the increased performance. However, at least in small pieces, the Ethernet will compliment the Wi-Fi. For example, when connecting a network hard drive, using a 1000baseT Ethernet port on a 802.11n Wi-Fi router would optimize the speed of the network drive. A Wi-Fi router with only 100baseT Ethernet ports or attached to a 100baseT network (hub or switches), would never let the network drive take advantage of the 802.11n speeds.

Gigabit Ethernet

There will always be reasons to use hard-wired networks, although those reasons may not be compelling for many people. If you decide that you want to keep the Ethernet option open, then you will need to investigate wiring your house. It's all about the cable.

Ten years ago, Cat-5 cable was the primary type of network cabling put into businesses and homes. It's rated for 100-megabit networks and has served its purpose well. However, as gigabit networks became more prominent, Cat-5e (enhanced) and Cat-6 cable became the new standard in wiring. It's not that Cat-5 cable won't deliver greater throughputs than 100 megabits, but pushing it to the next level of one gigabit is a bit iffy. The newer cable specifications are rated for higher speeds, with Cat-6 cable expected to perform at speeds up to five gigabits.

The problem with Ethernet cables in homes is that it is more or less a permanent solution. The cable you install today may not be the cable of the future. For that reason, much more attention is being paid to the Wi-Fi specification. There is currently work being done on a 10-gigabit Ethernet, but it would be a few years before the price and availability would optimize it for use in the home.

If you have a one-gigabit Ethernet network with Cat-5e or Cat-6 cable, it should easily outperform 802.11n Wi-Fi by a factor of at least two to one. (This can vary greatly depending on distances involved, sources of interference, and environmental conditions.)

It is difficult to say how home networking will evolve or whether hardwiring homes for Ethernet (at least partially) will come back into favor. Some people expect that there will be more interference problems between the 802.11n Wi-Fi networks once every house on the block has one. At this point, when planning your home network, if it's easy to run cable, do it; otherwise, design your network for optimum speed at every point.

Jack is the publisher of ComputorEdge Magazine. He's been with the magazine since first issue on May 16, 1983. Back then, it was called The Byte Buyer. His Web site is www.computoredge.com. He can be reached at