Posted on: Tuesday, August 28, 2001

Going wireless@home

• What you need to bag your cables
• Geekspeak to know: 802.11b and Home RF

By John Yaukey
Gannett News Service

Are we there yet?

The promise of easy, affordable high-speed wireless home networking has been looming on the horizon like an elusive summer vacation destination, always just over the next hill.

That is until now, thanks largely to recent advances in a technology known as 802.11b, a wireless networking standard that is rapidly moving from the office into the home.

The 802.11b standard, also called "Wi-Fi" for wireless fidelity, or "Airport" for Macintosh computers, works by connecting computers via radio signals. That means you can network desktop computers up to 150 feet apart without having to string any cables or drill through walls. If you own laptops, you can roam the house and yard untethered.

One of the great benefits of a wireless home network is having numerous computers share a single high-speed, or broadband, Internet connection so everyone can be online at once from wherever they want without tying up the phone. A wireless network is also useful if you need to sync files between a laptop and a desktop. If all your computers share a single peripheral such as a printer or an external CD-RW drive, a wireless network gives them all access without any cumbersome rewiring.

Wi-Fi data transfer speeds range as high as 11 megabits per second (Mbps), although actual speeds tend to be closer to about 75 percent of that or less. Still, that's roughly 10 times faster than a standard 56.6 kilobits per second (Kbps) dial-up Internet connection, but it's dramatically slower than 100 megabits per second possible on a wired network.

Setting up a Wi-Fi network entails equipping your computers with special networking cards called adapters that contain tiny radio antennae. These send and receive data from a brick-size base station called an access point that connects to the Internet with a wire.

Sound familiar?

In principle, it works just like your cordless phone except it shuttles your data instead of your voice.

So how about cost?

It's more expensive to set up a wireless network than a wired one, but the cost isn't prohibitive and might be worth it if you want the freedom to roam around the house with your laptop or avoid lots of wires.

You can now buy wireless networking adapters for about $100 to $140 each while access points run $200 to $300. Total cost to network a three-computer household: $400 to $500.

A wired network would require $20 to $50 network adapters and a router or switch, which runs $100 to $200.

Once the network adapters are installed, it typically takes about half a dozen on-screen procedures to set up the networking software and connect the computers. Most software will walk you through this.

"Networking the house with 802.11b is as close to painless as it gets right now," said Erik Sherman, author of "Home Networking: I Didn't Know I Could Do That." "And the icing on the cake: It actually works."

Apparently the news is getting out. This year, home computer users are expected to buy 2.3 million wireless networking kits, according to analysts at the Cahners In-Stat Group, up 97 percent over 2000.

Analysts say demand is going to continue rising sharply, especially as wireless networking products continue to drop in price and Internet service providers such as AOL (www.aol.com), MSN (www.msn.com) and Earthlink (www.earthlink.net) encourage their customers to use them to take advantage of high-speed access.

Dealing with minor snags

There are a few potential snags that come with setting up a wireless home network, but they're minor.

First, networks will bog down your computer somewhat with passwords, permissions and log-ons, but these are requirements of any network — whether wired or wireless — and necessary evils with so many hackers lurking about.

Second, wireless networks can be finicky during installation, so they may require a little tweaking to set up correctly.

Finally, you may find that some of the claims about 802.11b exceed actual performance. As was mentioned above, data throughput rarely will hit the peak of 11 Mbps. What's more, walls are not supposed to affect the signal. But some do.

And then there's signal interference from microwave ovens and other powerful electronic devices. It's easy to solve this problem by moving your wireless devices away from the offending appliances or other culprit.

When you add it all up, 802.11b is a solid technology that's been getting largely thumbs-up reviews.

"Wireless networking products for consumers — especially 802.11 — have come a long way in just the last six months," said Steve Baker, a wireless industry analyst with NPD Intelect. "And, like most other technology, they're going to get better, easier to use and cheaper with time."

Dealing with security

You can't talk about networks without addressing security.

And with a wireless network you have three points of potential vulnerability:

• The air. Hackers can theoretically "listen in" on your network if they're within the 150-foot range of the signal. But that's a lot easier said than done. The 802.11b signal cannot be received or decoded by simple scanners or short-wave receivers. What's more, it's encrypted. So unless you're spying for someone you're probably not worth the considerable effort required to hack your wireless network through the air.

• The wired connection between your access point and the Internet. Most 802.11b access points come equipped with "firewall" programs that will protect you from any hackers trying to get into your network via your wired connection to the Internet. Firewalls monitor network activity and block unauthorized access.

• Other networks. Make sure you have "onboard" security software for each of your computers, especially the laptops that you may want to tote with you and connect to other networks.

"Without security on the device, you're vulnerable to anything floating around on any of the other networks you might link to," said Jason Conyard, who heads up wireless security at Symantec, which makes computer security and troubleshooting software.

Among the most widely recommended home security software suites are Norton's Internet Security 2001 Family Edition ($79.95, www.symantec.com) or McAfee's Personal Firewall ($29.95, www.mcafee.com).