Networking Reviews

Home Network Setup – PhoneLine Network (HomePNA)

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An excerpt from the HomePNA Alliance site (www.homepna.org) gives an excellent description of what a PhoneLine HPNA network is:

“The HomePNA™ Alliance develops triple-play home networking solutions for distributing entertainment data over both existing coax cable and phone lines… By providing data rates up to 320 Mbps with guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS), HomePNA technology enables service providers to meet – and drive – the growing demand for new multimedia services such as IPTV and VoIP to the home. HomePNA technology also provides consumers with the many benefits of “no-new-wires” home networking. “

The strong point of PhoneLine (or HomePNA) networks is that you can use the existing telephone or coax wires to network your home PCs or other equipment. As with other home network technologies (Ethernet, PoweLine, WiFi etc), you still need a compatible Network Adapter for each device to be installed. Then, all you need to do is connect a normal telephone wire (or coax cable) from each networked device to a wall telephone jack (or coax plug). The current version of Home PNA is 3.1. This supports data speeds up to 320 Mbps, which is a considerable boost from the older version 3.0 (128 Mbps) and from version 2.0 (10 Mbps).

The diagram below shows a simple PhoneLine home network. [Read more…]

Home Network Setup – Ethernet Home Network

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If you need a lot of speed in your wired home network, then Ethernet Technology is the way to go. An Ethernet network runs at data transfer speeds of 10/100/1000 Mbps (Mbps= Megabits Per Second), depending on the speed of the Network Interface Cards (NIC) used on the networked equipment. A speed of 100Mbps is usually more than enough for the needs of a typical home network.
Usually, Ethernet equipment on the same network can auto-negotiate their speed settings, and set-up their speed to the highest supported value.

The network diagram below shows a typical Ethernet Wired Home Network. [Read more…]

Wired and Wireless Home Networks

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As explained in this post, you can build your home network by using either wired or wireless infrastructure. Ethernet, Power Lines and Phone Lines can be used for wired home networks, whereas the dominant technology for wireless home networks is the WiFi 802.11 standard.Below we give you a quick snapshot and comparison of the different home network technologies available.

Technology

 SPEED RANGE COST Wiring Ease Peripheral Availability

 

 

 

Wired
Home
Network

 Ethernet
(Using Copper Cables)		 Up to 1000 Mbps 100 m
330 ft		 Low Difficult if nodes are in different rooms Very popular, Extensive Availability
PhoneLine
(HPNA 3.1)		 Up to 320 Mbps 300 m
1000 ft		 Moderate Easy. Uses Existing Phone Lines Not popular, Limited Availability
PowerLine (HomePlug AV) Up to 200 Mbps Half Duplex Length of Power Line Low to Moderate Easy. Uses Existing Power Lines Not popular, Moderate Availability
FireWire 400 Mbps 5 m
15 ft		 Low Easy. Usually between two PCs High Availability

 

 

Wireless
Home
Network

 WiFi 802.11a 54 Mbps Radius
~35 m *		 Moderate No wires Not popular, Limited Availability
WiFi 802.11b 11 Mbps Radius
~38 m *		 Low No wires Very popular, Extensive Availability
WiFi 802.11g 54 Mbps Radius
~38 m *		 Low to Moderate No wires Very popular, Extensive Availability
WiFi 802.11n Over 200 Mbps Radius
~70 m *		 Moderate to High No wires New standard, gaining popularity

* WiFi Radius Indoor Distance depends on number and types of walls. It is usually much less than the shown value.
Home Network Security
A factor that must never be omitted when building a home LAN network, especially when the network is connected to the internet, is how to protect data and preserve your privacy. “Defense in Depth” is the best security approach to take. This layered security concept refers to implementing an outer perimeter layer of security using a firewall (included in the Home Gateway broadband router for example), and then implement inner layers of security (on your internal home network computers) to protect against viruses, spyware etc.

The need for setting up a home network

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The driving force behind the explosion of home networks is the need for information and resource sharing. By having your computers, and other information resources, networked within your home, you have the following benefits:

  • Internet Connection Sharing: Multiple home users can access the Internet simultaneously.
  • File Sharing: Share music, files, photos etc between home computers.
  • Printer Sharing: Install a network printer and share it.
  • Home Entertainment and Multimedia Sharing: Stream music or video stored in a Network Storage Device and play them through your Multimedia Center.
  • Multi-player Games: Use your home LAN network to organize home game parties !!!.
  • Use VoIP Telephony: With Voice over IP Telephony you can easily utilize exploding Internet Telephony applications (such as Skype), use software phones, share multimedia on the phone device etc.
  • Use Wireless Security Cameras: You can install a wi-fi wireless IP security camera to monitor your home remotely. You can connect from the Internet (while at work for example) on your home security camera to watch whats going on inside your home.
  • Use Network Attached Storage: A NAS (Network Attached Storage) is a hard disk device connected to your home network for file sharing. Advanced NAS units (such as Synology and QNAP) offer also a Bit-torrent/HTTP/FTP software for downloading files directly on the hard disk without using a PC.

A typical home network topology is shown on the diagram below: [Read more…]