Home Networking: The Missing Manual

Wired Networks

While you may have heard lots about wireless networking, wired networks are often the easiest to set up, the cheapest to buy, and the most stable to maintain. Wired networks come in two main flavors:

• Ethernet uses cables that look like fat telephone wires. Ethernet is by far the most common type of network in use today because it's fast, cheap, and reliable. How fast? It runs anywhere from 10 to 1,000 megabits per second (see the box "A Bit about Bits" for detailed information about these data speeds, but for now, just imagine that at 10 Mbps, you could transfer the entire contents of a 40-gigabyte iPod in about 9 hours across your network; with a 1,000 Mbps connection, you'd be done in under 6 minutes). Practically every piece of home-networking equipment in existence includes Ethernet ports. Even wireless networking equipment includes Ethernet capabilities so that you can easily connect it to a wired network. This standardization is particularly important because it makes it a lot easier to mix and match networking technology.

  Note

  The speed of your Ethernet network depends on your hardware. 100 Mbps is the most common speed today, and 1,000 Mbps, (also called Gigabit Ethernet), is gaining popularity. 10 Mbps is going the way of the vinyl record.

  The only downside to Ethernet is that if you want to connect computers in more than one room, or if you want the freedom to use your laptop on the sofa or in bed, you have to run unsightly cables to every computer in every room you want to connect to your network. Chapter 2 covers Ethernet in detail.

• Powerline, which is also called HomePlug, uses your existing electrical lines to carry your network's data. This type of network is even easier to set up than Ethernet, because you don't need to buy and run cables from room to room. To set up a Powerline network you need just a few Powerline adapters (Figure 1-4), which easily connect your computers and your router to your electrical wiring, and come equipped with either Ethernet or USB connections.

  The great thing about Powerline networking (unless you live in a yurt or an old New York City apartment) is that you probably have electrical outlets in every room, which makes it easy to extend your network throughout your home.

  On the downside, Powerline networks are not as fast as most Ethernet networks. They run at 14 Mbps—still nearly 10 times faster than most broadband Internet connections (see the box on Section 1.5 that explains the difference between your Internet connection speed and your network's internal speed). In addition, Powerline adapters must be plugged directly into the wall, so you can't use an extension cord or most power strips. If all this sounds workable, check out Chapter 4, which covers Powerline networking in detail.

Figure 1-4. The blocky Powerline Ethernet adapter makes hooking your computer to the network as easy as plugging in a hair dryer. Just plug the adapter into a nearby power outlet and plug one end of a network cable into the jack on the bottom. Connect the other end of the cable to the Ethernet port on your computer, and you'll be surfing the Web in no time.