Planning network for home or office…. Go for

The current time is where everyone likes to be connected to their loved ones and the Internet has played a very vital role in this. Now almost all middleclass families are having computer in their home and also have access to the internet. Similarly the support of internet to your business can give it new heights.

Now the condition is again changing, instead of having a single system, there is more than one system and every system likes to be connected to the internet. So, now whenever you are planning for the internet connections, and if you are going to use it regularly, then go for the broadband connection. It will give you a good experience and will be economical also. There’s lot of offers available in the market so it’s difficult for one to make choice.

Selection of ISP:

The broadband service provided by BSNL and MTNL are for stationary access, whereas the services provided by the mobile companies as TATA Indicom, Reliance, Idea, etc. allows you to access the internet on the move. So depending upon your need select your connection. I suggest that you must go for the stationary connection, provided by BSNL and MTNL over their basic phone connection, as here are very few moments when you will have to access the internet on the move unless you are from corporate world. You can also go for the broadband connection provided by the mobile companies but that will be not economical. Stationary broadband will give you good bandwidth (speed) so you can have good working experience. The service provided by mobile service providers through the USB modem or device not gives the good speed. So, you are not going to work smoothly with the interactive multimedia content, like watching videos, or video conferencing with your loved ones.

Selecting Customer Premises Equipment (CPE):

The broadband service provided by BSNL and MTNL requires you to setup ADSL modem for accessing the service. I will suggest you to purchase the modem having more than one LAN port and also having Wi-Fi port this will help you access the service on more than one system and also wirelessly. However this let you spend some more money but it will be beneficial for the future.

Typical Wi Fi Router with inbuilt modem (front view)

Rear view

The most important thing over here is the Wi-Fi! As it will be good for you, because the future is of Wi-Fi. Maximum devices are now being Wi-Fi enabled like the mobile phones and printers. This also lets you get of the rid of the wiring overhead for accessing the network. It also lets you easily add devices to the network. All laptops are now Wi-Fi enabled, for accessing Wi-Fi network on desktop computer just use the USB Wi-Fi Adapter, which is also easily available. It lets you to move out of the rooms and provides you access to the network in your whole premises. The most important is placement of the Wi-Fi router (modem). The modem acts as the Wi-Fi router (or Access Point) for the devices in range. The placement of the router (modem) plays a dominant role for better reception of the signal.

The router will be placed in the open location so that you get good signal reception. If possible place it in the center of your home or office at a height of 1.5 to 2 meters, which will give you better signal strength.

Security:

Now the most important thing with the Wi-Fi is the security. You think that you placed the router at the best location and getting good signal reception all over your premises that’s all! You think that the signal seizes to extend out of your premises! It is not the case; the signal continues to extend beyond the boundary of your premises. Thus to protect your data and internet connection, security is the most important concern. The most common wireless encryption standard is Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), but it has shown to be easily breakable even when correctly configured. So, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA and WPA2) became the standard in 2003 and is now shipped with almost all Wi-Fi enabled equipments. By default the Wi-Fi routers are configured in the “open” mode, i.e. anyone who is in the range of the Wi-Fi signals can access the network and if the person having some technical knowledge then he/she can change the settings of your router. Thus it is advisable to first change the IP address range of you router and then change the SSID i.e. the network name and then set the network access key. Also it will be better to hide the access point so that it is not discoverable from the devices in range.

So whenever you are going to set up small networks in home or in your office then go for Wi-Fi. It is the best option available with least overhead. The wireless router with inbuilt modem will let you to connect the devices with each other and also to the internet. So turn your home or office into a “hot spot” for you.