Networking comes in different flavors, including wireless
Networking comes in different flavors, including wireless
JAKARTA (JP): So you now have a 24-hour Internet connection into your house via a cable modem. You access the Internet for work, but your kids also demand their share of the newly found freedom to chat online. Does it sound like the usual conflict of interest? How do you solve it?
Networking all the PCs and notebooks in your house can be useful in many respects. First, transferring files will no longer require the use of floppy diskettes. Second, virus protection can be optimized to all the computers in your home office, in the living room and in your children's study area. Third, one cable modem can serve a number of PCs if they are already connected to a local area network (LAN). Fourth, if the Internet cable service is down, you can still share the same phone line-based modem and the same ISP account until the service is up again.
The easiest and most straightforward way to connect your PCs is to buy one Ethernet adapter card for each of them. A popular and reasonably priced network interface card (NIC) is ReadyLINK Express 10/100, a product of Singapore-based Compex. It costs less than Rp 150,000 apiece. If you have more than two PCs to connect, you can buy a hub.
A low-end Compex hub would cost around Rp 350,000, and it can connect up to four PCs. Of course, there are more expensive hubs that can connect up to 24 PCs. Many of these higher-priced PCs are also stackable, which means you can put one on top of the other to connect a larger number of PCs. The problem with the Ethernet LAN is that you have to run new wires to connect all the PCs, and these cables can be messy.
3Com is another very popular networking products manufacturer. One of the latest offerings from 3Com for SOHO is the phone line- based network. This may be a preferred solution for homes in which every room already has a phone jack, as no additional wiring will be necessary. There are other products offered by other manufacturers, as well. However, as we seldom have homes with phone lines in every room, this solution is not very popular here.
Just last month, 3Com launched a wireless network solution for homes. Called AirConnect, the 802.11b radio transmission-based LAN uses on an access point that can be hung from the ceiling or mounted on the wall. The access point then connects to the wired LAN via an Ethernet cable. The PCs communicate at the maximum speed of 11 Mbps with the access point using AirConnect PC Card for notebooks and AirConnect PCI Card for desktop computers that serve both as the NICS and transmitters/receivers. An interesting feature of the AirConnect access point is that it draws power for transmitting and receiving signals through the Ethernet cable.
Intel Corporation also has its own wireless home networking solution, which is called AnyPoint. A new version of AnyPoint uses transceivers that connect to the PCs via the USB port, and therefore it offers the easiest installation. However, since it uses the USB connection, the speed is also very low. Intel says that the speed is 1.6 Mbps, but in reality it may be lower.
Who else provide wireless networking solutions? Of course two of the biggest network equipment makers, Cisco Systems and Lucent Technologies, have joined the growing group of companies offering the 802.11-based products. Cisco has the Aironet, while Lucent has Orinoco. Both of these are aimed at large networks spanning multiple buildings rather than homes. For example, both allow notebook users to access a LAN at a distance of up to 10 miles away from the access point.
If you have an Apple Powerbook, the available wireless network solution is AirPort. The good news is that AirPort works with these vendors' wireless network solutions.
Wireless technologies are advancing at a breathtaking pace, particularly because of the convenience that it gives us. The problem is, what happens to us -- and the rest of earth's living beings -- as we increasingly have all these high power radio frequencies bouncing around us? (Zatni Arbi)