Building a Simple Home Network (Page 1 of 4)
Written by
Steve Lake
Posted on: Nov 30, 2003 at 05:01am
Section:
Tutorials
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At some point everyone will want to network their house, either to share
a single internet connection, to share files, play games together, or more. To do that you
need to set one up that meets your needs and requirements. In this article we will discuss
how to choose your network, its components, steps to setting it up, troubleshooting,
planning, and design. When we are all done, you should be able to setup an effective home
network for your friends, family, or just yourself.
To start with we must first plan the network...
Planning
your network
Before building your own home network you must plan it out first. This is useful to
determine how it needs to be laid out, where your wires will go, and how it will fit into
your home. Rarely will you find a situation where you get to decide in advance how the
room will be designed and built in order to best accommodate your network. Usually
it’s more a case of having to adapt your network to an already existing room, house,
or building. The first step in planning your network will be to decide where each machine
will be placed in your house, or wherever you will be setting up your network. Once you
have decided that, you will need several basic items to help you plan the layout of your
network.
- Pencil and Paper
- Measuring Tape
- String
To begin, take your pencil and a piece of paper and draw a basic floor plan of your
home. After you’ve done this, mark where each computer in the house sits and any
major pieces of furniture (couch, chair, bed, etc) or permanent fixtures (counters, ovens,
shelves, etc) are at to get a good visual guide to them on paper. Next, mark where in the
house your DSL or cable modem will be located. With DSL or Cable modem, or almost any
Internet connection for that matter, the connection usually originates somewhere near
either the cable TV connection or a phone jack depending on the type of internet
connection you have. Sometimes this will be near where your computer is, other times it
may be on the other side of the house. For simplicity's sake, your router should be
located near this point. Since your router will be the center of your network, you will
want to use it as the source point for all your wiring to keep things as simple as
possible. If you haven’t noticed by now, simplicity is the key word here. The simpler
we keep it, the better. If you have multiple floors in your house or the building where
you will be working at, you may want to draw a separate diagram for each floor and mark
the locations (stairs, ladders, etc) where a change from one floor to the next is made.
Once you’ve completed drawing your floor plan, carefully draw the simplest path from
your router to each computer. Look at specifically which path each network cable takes. To
prevent possible problems down the line, some questions you can ask yourself while
planning out each path is, “Will these be viable paths?” or “Will the
wiring get in the way of anything?” If you’re using a wireless connection, take
into account how far you are away from the wireless router and what lies between your
router and your computer that could cause interference, like floors, poles, or other
items. Next, take your measuring tape and measure the approximate distance from your
router to your computer. Don’t be afraid to be a bit generous in your measurements.
It’s better to have too much cable, than not enough. Just don’t go over your 100
yards (300 feet) of allowed cable length. If you find that the distance is greater than
100 yards between your computer and the router, a different route may need to be explored
in order to reach your computer. Once you have your distance to your computer measured,
write it down. If you would like, you may take a 100 yard long roll of twisted nylon
string (available at most stores) and a measuring tape and practice laying the cable using
the string. This can be useful in several ways.
- Standard Cat5e cable can only go 100 yards before it becomes unusable due to signal
attenuation (signal loss). The roll of string will help to tell you if you have too much
distance between your computer and your router.
- Using the string, you can visually map the path your network cable will take to help
identify problems you may encounter while laying the actual network cable, such as
distance or some previously unforeseen obstacle. It will also help you identify if you
need to use a wireless bridge to overcome certain obstacles where using a standard network
cable would be impractical.
- Using the measuring tape in combination with the string, you will be better able to
calculate exactly how much network cable you will need to allow you to get it cut into
more accurate lengths.
Now that you’ve completed this, you will want to go pick up the supplies needed to
complete your network.
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