Setting up a home WLAN
Roam at home.
By Mark Newhouse
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I remember watching the MacWorld keynote when Steve Jobs introduced wireless networking. As he was demonstrating the then new iBooks and their internet capabilities, he casually picked it up and began to walk away from the counter it had been sitting on. Untethered, he was still surfing the web. Slowly, people in attendance began to realize the significance of this, and soon a few gasps turned into a roar of applause as everyone recognized that this was something special.
And so the Wi-Fi revolution began.
It would be many months before I would experience the thrill of not being locked to a desk to catch up on email. My first time involved being able to demonstrate to our team a web based form I had created. I wanted to show them in real time, and over the internet, how everything worked. The wireless solution was exactly what I needed. But since this is a tutorial on setting things up at home, I'll let you read that story elsewhere.
Who should read this article?
Geeks, newbies and your mom.
What you need prior to reading this article:
If you want to set up your own home LAN, you'll need the
stuff Mark recommends.
Where can I get the stuff you talk about in this article?
See Mark's suggestions for links to
hardware he mentions in this article. To shop around (and help out
airshare.org) we suggest surfiing
over to the 'Get' section. We have a growing
list of manufacturers too .
Where can I go to get help if I need it?
Join the lists and ask a fellow member.
Where can I go to give comments on this article?
In the forums.
Why I did it
About a year and a half ago we moved to a bigger house that afforded me a home office. I was working at home more and more, and due to the size of many of the files that I was working with, it became necessary to investigate broadband internet access. As it turned out, cable was our only option, so we had it installed.
My wife and kids had gotten used to checking email and surfing the web on the old iMac. I had a Blue and White G3 tower in the office, and had gotten very used to Surfing Naked, as I called it, with the Tangerine iBook at work (since upgraded to a TiBook). A home wireless network was the obvious solution.
There was no wireless solution available for our iMac. I knew that a PCI/PC card bundle was available that could turn the G3 into a wireless desktop, and the iBook from work already had an AirPort card. So I did a bit of research and found the Macsense Xrouter Aero. In addition to being a wireless base station, it also served as a 4 port ethernet router. This was perfect since I needed to be able to plug the iMac in, and the AirPort base station did not offer that capability at the time (its only ethernet port would be taken up by the cable modem).
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How I did it
The cable modem sits next to the iMac...
...and is connected to the Xrouter Aero, which is on top of the computer desk for best reception.
The iMac connects to the router via an ethernet cable. This was the easy part. Actually the rest was pretty easy, too.
The Xrouter Aero comes with a web based interface to setting up your network. It pretty much runs out of the box as a DHCP router, with its own firewall.
I logged in by pointing my browser to the router's default ip of 192.168.1.1.
Following the quickstart instructions, I had things set up in just a few minutes. The iBook recognized the router right away, and I was surfing from the couch in no time. Once set up, you'll want to change the password for logging into your router. And if you are concerned about the security of your network, you can set things like WEP encryption and limiting access by MAC or IP address in other control panels via the browser based interface. I won't go into detail here since each router will have a slightly different implementation.
My home office space is at the other side of the house, which is what prompted me to create the WLAN in the first place. As I already mentioned, I ordered a PCI/PC card combo to add to my G3 tower.
When the PCI/PC card bundle arrived I opened up the tower and installed the PCI card. This was pretty easy due to the excellent access Apple provides in it's well engineered computers (YMMV with Windows machines...).
After closing things up I inserted the PC card and got ready to install the drivers so I could start surfing.
Unfortunately the CD they shipped me only included Windows drivers. So I downloaded the Mac driver onto the iBook and transferred it to the desktop via a crossover cable I had laying around. A quick install and restart and everything was good. The network was essentially complete, but is flexible enough to allow other hardware to become a part of it.
I have an old PowerBook 540C laying around (it's falling apart, waiting to be turned into a digital picture frame) that I have plugged into the network, as well as a Windows laptop from work.
In fact I've successfully "borrowed" the PC card from the G3 and used it in the Windows laptop, just to see if I could get it to work on the wireless part of the WLAN as well.
After installing the correct drivers I had no trouble.
Above is what my Wi-Fi network looks like (or might at any given time, depending on what hardware I have brought home from work).
How you can do it
In the year and a half since I have set up my home WLAN, new products have been introduced that might have changed the way I chose to do things. And depending on your situation, my solution may not be the best solution for you. I'll try to outline here what you will need, and how to acquire what you might not have.
What you need
Wi-Fi networking is very popular now. Many computers come ready for wireless networking, or at least are Wi-Fi capable. Just about any laptop made in the last few years has a PC slot that can take a wireless card. Some come with antennas built in for better reception. And every computer that Apple has shipped in the last few years is AirPort capable, if not AirPort ready when you receive it (AirPort is Apple's term for 802.11b, the industry standard for wireless networking).
If you have a desktop machine that is not ready for wireless you have a couple of options. If the machine is close to your internet access point (phone line, cable/DSL/ISDN modem) then a router may be the best solution. Like we did with our iMac, simply plug the computer into the router via an ethernet cable. If you want to have access from another part of the house, but aren't interested in snaking CAT5 cable through the walls, then a PCI/PC card bundle is probably your best option.
However, there is another option. If your computer has a free USB port, Macsense has recently released the AeroPad, a new product that connects a wireless receiver to your Mac or PC via USB. This costs about the same as the PCI/PC card bundle, and might be worth looking into, especially if you do not have any free PCI slots on your computer.
AirPort vs Wireless routers
Another product that has recently been released is Apple's AirPort Extreme, their name for 802.11g, which allows networking at 54Mbps, nearly five times as fast as current Wi-Fi speeds of 11Mbps. This probably won't affect your surfing bandwidth that much, but if you do a lot of file transfer on your home network, it might be worth looking into. The new AirPort Extreme base stations come with a second ethernet port for adding a wired computer (like our iMac) into the network, and a USB port for USB printer sharing (but not spooling).
Apple also has a second version of the AirPort Extreme base station that adds connections for an external antenna and a 56K (V.90) modem.
However, Apple is not the only company to have released new products based on the new (draft, as of this writing) IEEE 802.11g specification, so you aren't locked into their implementations. See offerings from Buffalo Technology, Linksys, and Proxim, for starters.
In fact, if you have more than one wired computer in your network, or you want to add an ethernet capable printer or other devices, then you'll need a router such as the Xrouter Aero or a Linksys router. These base stations include several ethernet ports for connecting your wired computers and peripherals to the network, allowing for greater flexibility and room for growth in your network.
Where to get it
Now go do it!
Once you try Wi-Fi, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. Being able to surf the web and check email from anywhere in the house (or even the tree house in the backyard) will soon become the norm for you, so give it a shot - you'll be glad you did.