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Home Wireless Network How to
Almost every family has a home network and a prerequisite is if it could be wireless, the less cables needed the better. One of the advantages of wireless networks is the lack of cables. But with that there are a lot of disadvantages, not having cables makes it easier for hackers to get into your home network and also since the signal is wireless it has to go through walls etc. 1. Placement: First of all try and find a place in the middle of your home where you can place the wireless gateway. Also make sure that the device is not near a corner because that limits the coverage. Don’t get discouraged if you can’t find a suitable place just make sure the device is away from any electrical equipment like microwaves, mobile phones and sometimes power plugs, all these can affect reception. There are other ways you can improve your home wireless network coverage which I won’t be mentioning in this article.
* Different Wireless Standards - Up till now there are 5 types 802.11a, 802.11b speed up to 12Mbps, 802.11g speed up to 54Mbps, 802.11n speed up to 300Mbps and 802.11e speed up to 300Mbps. The only difference between 802.11n and 802.11e is the coverage and the channel frequency 2.4GHz and 5GHz. According to a lot of sources the 5GHz or 802.11e is recommended for use in the city because the 2.4GHz is shared with a lot of other home appliances.
* MIMO (Multiple input, Multiple output) - this wireless technology is implemented only on the new N series adapters. MIMO eliminates dead spots and improves coverage range. But in order to use it you have to make sure that all gadgets on your home wireless network support it.
2. Router/Gateway Set Up:
* Defaults: Never ever use the router defaults. Hackers are familiar with these default identifiers and passwords, so when they spot a network using them they know it is likely to be vulnerable. First thing you need to do when you login to the administrative settings is to change the password. Second is to change the SSID (Service Set IDentifier, or your home wireless network name).
* Firewalls: usually all new routers come with an inbuilt firewall and also they are turned off by default, make sure you switch it on. (Warning: I’ve noticed that on some browsers the combination of firewall and WPA2/WPA encryption lead to frequent disconnects from the home wireless network)
* SSID broadcast: Some routers give you the option to turn off the SSID broadcast and if you ask me I’d recommend it as well. What this means is that is people search for available wireless networks in their area they want see yours on their list because it is hidden and the only way to connect to your home wireless network is to know the SSID.
* Use MAC address filterd: Every network card, whether it’s wireless or wired, has a unique Media Access Control address (MAC address). What this option does is it restricts access to only certain MAC addresses. It is a bit complicated but does not require experts to do it.
* Encryption: There are 3 types of encryption that most home wireless network routers/gateways support WEP/WAP/WAP2. The two most recommended and hardest to hack are WAP/WAP2. WPA2 is not supported on Windows XP but there are updates that can be downloaded to activate it. (Advice: From my experience using WPA/WPA2 affects the router’s reliability and speed. If I use WPA2 my speed drops, I keep getting disconnected from the network and also I’ve noticed every time I start downloading big files or try and start video/voice conference on Skype or MSN my connection drops after the first few minutes and then I have to restart my PC to fix the problem. This security measure gets a bit annoying with time.)
* Wireless Network Channels: Try and use channels that are not used in your neighbour hood. The less interference the better.
* My Advice: Change the router/gateway defaults as soon as you connect to, switch on the firewall if any, deactivate SSID broadcast, set up the MAC filtering and for encryption use WEP or none. Also all router support DHCP what this means is that when a new device connects to your home wireless network it gets issued an IP address by your router/gateway. I’d recommend switching off that option and using static IPs. This is yet another security measure because even if people manage to connect to your home network they won’t be able to communicate with any computers because they would not have a valid IP address.
3. Wireless Adapter Set Up: If you followed my advice on how to set up your router/gateway you will have to manually setup each and every client computer/console/mobile phone/fridge/tv and what not . There is a special setting that I found doing extensive research that helps home wireless network performance in large populated areas. Go to your wireless adapter configuration (on a PC ControlPanel->System->Device Manager) find your wireless devise and double click on it. Then go to the advanced tab and look for Preamble Select property. When you find it click on it and in the value drop down choose Short Preamble. Then click OK. This is it now you should have reliable and secure home wireless network where you could plug in your PCs, Macs, Consoles (PS3, PSP, Wii, Nintendo DS, Xbox), Mobile PDAs, printers etc. and no wiress going around the house, very nifty :) |
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The copyright for this content entitled "Home Wireless Network How to" has been specified by the contributor as:
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This content may not be copied, distributed or adapted by anyone under any circumstances.
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This intel was contributed by kal
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May, 2012
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