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In the next couple of weeks (after I move), I'll be able to get DSL and FINALLY stop using my 56k modem. The house we are getting is a 2-story house with telephone jacks in each room. I currently have a network here in my existing house, but it's running on 10Base2 RG58 cable with BNC connectors. Yeah I know it's cheap, but it has worked with no problems the last 5 years and I've been too lazy to upgrade it.

Now I'm wondering how I'm going to network my pc's in the new house? I have a bedroom downstairs that will house 2 pcs. The other 3 pc's will be upstairs in each bedroom. If I have DSL, I'm assuming I can simply connect each PC to the phone jack in each room correct?

I'm a little confused as to the exact method of connecting the pc's together as a network again. I'm probably going to need a router which connects with the incoming DSL line, but from there I'm at a loss on what to do next. Should I go wireless?

Any help and tips will be appreciated. TIA

You'll need to run some CAT5 or CAT5e cable throughout the house. Its a 4 pair cable and each pair has its special twist to it. The connectors are RJ45's. Standard phone ends are RJ11's. You should be able to go to home depot or lowe's and buy everything u need there. A quick search on google will show you how to wire it all up. If it was me i'd place the router downstairs and run all of the wiring down there. Your going to need a router with more than 4 ports. i think linksys has a 8port router most are 4 though. or a 1 router and a 4 port hub running off the uplink should work also. You can buy wall plates for the rooms that the cables will plug into in there. Down in the basement there's 1 of 2 ways you could do it. Just put a RJ45 on the ends of the cables and plug them right into the router. Or do it the proper way and use a punchdown block to terminate the cable ends and then u go from the block to the router. This would be more expensive and a little more complex but not too bad. Most small home networks i have installed i've just put rj45's on the cables and plugged them right into the router. The other way looks neater and cleaner but in the end it all works just the same. If this sounds kinda vague i'm sorry i suck at explaining things. A lot easier to show than to type it all out

The other option is to go wireless, but it ain't cheap. Around $80 for the Router/AP and $60 for each wireless NIC.

Put a wireless Router/AP at the computer with the DSL modem (that one gets hardwired to the router - no need for wireless) and a wireless NIC (either PCI or USB) on all the others.

Much cheaper to run CAT 5 through the house though, and just buy a DSL router.

Well, I might be stuck with wireless, even though cat 5 I would prefer, but I don't want cat 5 cable that is visible as I rather have it inside the wall. On a 2 story house (at least here in California), there is no attic space between the bottom and top floor.

FP,
On wireless, do you have any recommendations to any brands? Are some better than others? I don't mind spending money, but I don't want POS hardware that won't work or is marginal.

Any major name brand will work fine (Speedstream, LinkSys, D-Link, Belkin).

I've found the Linksys gear to work fine but I've occasionally had problems with range.

I'm using D-Link Airplus gear in my house right now and it seems to work real well. It also supports 22kbit instead of 11. That shouldn't make much difference to you unless you transfer a lot of files.

Keep in mind that range is the big issue. While they claim that the range of these things is 500+ feet, that really doesn't happen. They use the same frequencies as wireless phones, and generally have the same range. While they might reach across the full length of a house, the signal will be pretty weak by the time you get to the far end.

Ideally you want to place the AP (access point) as close to the physical center of the house as possible. Place it high up on a book shelf if possible for max coverage.

Dlink also makes repeaters now (and I think all their airplus APs can act as repeaters). So if you have a weak signal in one corner of the house, you can setup a repeater half way between the AP and the weak area to help.

If you live in a metropolitan area, then you also want to enable data encryption so someone in the street doesn't leech your Net access. You should also use passwords on all shared folders.

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin If you live in a metropolitan area, then you also want to enable data encryption so someone in the street doesn't leech your Net access. You should also use passwords on all shared folders.

Good point, as I completely forgot about security since I've always been using a modem. Enabling data encryption is done by the OS or by the wireless networking kit? Sounds like you're pretty happy with your wireless networking setup.

It's done on the AP and then you have to set the wireless NIC's properties to use the key you entered into the AP.

One thing you may be able to do is run CAT 5 for the 3 computers that are in your upstairs and then get a wireless router and a seperate AP, and use the AP as the bridge between the router and the computer downstairs, with a simple hub allowing those two, unless they are apart and you don't want cables on the floor.

The router/AP has a control panel you access via your web browser (it's a local IP address). there you can set the encyption. You make up a random string of numbers & letters as your encryption key.

Then on each of the computers with a wireless NIC, there's an app to enable encryption on the NIC - you need to set them all to the same encryption key.

I'd setup the network first without encyption then once it's working you can deal with that.

The encyryption is not very strong, which is why I recommend strong passwords if you're file sharing otherwise disable file sharing.