Long L. Home Networking Demystified
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CHAPTER 9 Sharing Printers, Files, and an Internet Connection
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Internet Access Sharing
Figure 9-12 Map Network Drive dialog box
In all likelihood, you probably have or soon will have multiple PCs in your home.
Through the 1990s, the vast majority of us had dial-up Internet access, whether we had
one or four PCs. Family members in multiple-PC homes with dial-up access learned
about patience and waiting their turn on the Internet. Many households installed a
“data line” to take the pressure off the telephone line, but the extra line didn’t help
much with the queue for the Internet. Internet access became the point of family
confl ict. Mom, Dad, and the kids wanted on the Internet, and they wanted on now.
Three things came together in the late 1990s with the potential to make everyone
happy:
• The advent of broadband Internet access at prices families could afford
• Economically priced consumer-oriented communications equipment for
home networks
• Windows support for Internet connection sharing
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Home Networking Demystifi ed
A single broadband line feeding a home network can give everyone in the family
his or her own high-speed Internet access.
To enable Internet access sharing on your home network, you need to set up your
modem and confi gure your PCs and your home gateway’s router for Internet access
sharing. This process is relatively straightforward and is described in detail in
Chapter 8. However, the most diffi cult task in setting up Internet access sharing is
not technical—it’s selecting a broadband ISP.
Choosing an Internet Service Provider
One of the biggest challenges in setting up a home network is deciding which
broadband Net access is the best fi t for your needs and circumstances. Because the
selection process is an important precursor to Internet access sharing, this topic is
covered in this resource sharing chapter. Internet applications are presented in
Chapter 12.
There are literally thousands of Internet service providers, most of which are
local and several of which are national/international. Our focus is popular broadband
options (cable-modem, DSL, and satellite). When you begin your search for an
Internet service provider or ISP, you may see other options listed, including dial-up,
ISDN, T-1, and T-3. ISDN is a dial-up service (128 Kbps) that is being phased out.
T-1 and T-3 are expensive, high-speed services designed for businesses.
ISP Service Options
At least 90 percent of the ISPs offer dial-up service at 56 Kbps, and most of them
offer ISDN at 128 Kbps. About half of the ISPs offer DSL service. A few are DSL-
only ISPs, but that number will continue to rise as people migrate from dial-up to
broadband service. Your ISP for cable-modem access and your cable TV company
probably are the same. However, even if you have cable TV and a terrestrial
telephone service, there is no guarantee that you will have cable-modem and/or
DSL service.
There are plenty of satellite ISPs that cater to those people who are “rural and
underserved.” That means you don’t have access to DSL or cable-modem because,
if you did, you would not be considering satellite. Although satellite offers
comparable service, the monthly service charges can be double or triple those of
cable-modem or DSL. My home is somewhat rural, so satellite service was my only
option for several years. It worked well; however, I switched to DSL at the fi rst
opportunity and cut my monthly Internet service cost in half.
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CHAPTER 9 Sharing Printers, Files, and an Internet Connection
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Anyone with a terrestrial telephone line can subscribe to dial-up access. If you
live in America and have a southern exposure to the sky, you can get broadband
satellite. This means that the vast majority of people will have a choice between
slow and fast Internet access.
Choosing a Type of Internet Access
When you are ready to subscribe to an Internet service through an ISP, your choices
probably will be dial-up (slow) or broadband (fast); however, the overwhelming
choice of people with home networks is broadband. Although dial-up service can be
shared, it’s slow (especially in a LAN) and cumbersome to use. Your choices,
however, may be limited by availability of certain types of service and your fi nancial
circumstances. You can expect to pay $X for dial-up access and from $2X to $4X for
broadband access, depending on where you live. The classic decision process for
people seeking a broadband ISP for a home network is illustrated in Figure 9-13.
The extra cost for high-speed broadband service is well worth the money,
especially in a home network where everyone can enjoy broadband—all of the
time. Always-on broadband access offers a completely different experience than
dial-up. Your will to surf, to download, to send images, and to participate in real-
time applications is markedly subdued when you must continually wait for web
pages to build, or watch download-completion bars that seem stuck in time.
Numerous studies have shown that broadband users are more willing to explore and
take full advantage of cyberspace when they don’t have to wait for pages to build.
You may pay a little more for broadband, but you get up to 50 times the access
speed. If you do any work at home, the extra capacity will pay for itself in a single
day of use. If you need help justifying the extra expense of broadband, just consider
that you won’t need an extra “data line” for dial-up access. Many people with dial-
up access choose to have an extra phone line so that their main voice line is available
for incoming and outgoing calls.
Figure 9-13 shows that if you want broadband and neither DSL nor cable is
available, your only choice is satellite. The problem with satellite is that it can be
very expensive (possibly in excess of $1200 per year), and to some people,
broadband just isn’t worth that much money. If this is the case, then click-and-wait
dial-up is clearly better than no Internet access.
Although it may not be a choice during the currency of this book, I would be
remiss not to mention what appears to be the inevitability of widespread wireless
broadband. Industry forecasters are telling us that wireless broadband based on a
cell phone technology called EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) will be available
to most of us as early as 2006. This is different than today’s very limited wireless
broadband in “hot spots,” such as coffee shops and airport waiting areas. The new
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Home Networking Demystifi ed
Figure 9-13 The ISP decision process
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CHAPTER 9 Sharing Printers, Files, and an Internet Connection
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wireless broadband will provide broadband access for your home network at DSL/
cable-modem speeds, and it will offer the same speeds for your mobile devices
(notebook PC, PDA, or cell phone) from any location in any metropolitan area in
the United States.
DSL Considerations
For most of us seeking broadband Internet access, the question is “Do I choose DSL
or cable-modem?” One of DSL’s advantages and disadvantages is that it is distance
sensitive; that is, the longer the DSL run between the house and a telecom offi ce or a
DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer) booster station, the less the
capacity of the line. If you’re lucky enough to live close to the phone company offi ce
or a remote DSLAM, the access speed you experience will be superior to those
unlucky souls at the end of the line (about three miles). The DSLAM at the offi ce or
a remote facility links a number of DSL customers to a single very high speed
communications channel, usually fi ber optic cable. The DSLAM for my DSL service
is about 1000 feet from my home, so I routinely enjoy the maximum available capacity
from my ISP. If you’re considering DSL, you might wish to research your location
relative to the nearest DSLAM or chat with your neighbors about their bandwidth
speed. A number of web sites offer a free “bandwidth speed test” service.
With DSL, you need only one telephone line for voice and data. Because they use
different frequency bands, the digital DSL signal can be transmitted at the same time
you are holding an analog voice conversation. When you subscribe to DSL, you will
receive a certain number of line fi lters that are designed to eliminate “data noise”
during voice conversations. The small pass-through fi lters are placed in-line between
your voice phone jack and telephone line. If you have a lot of phones and hear a
hissing sound on the lines without fi lters, you may need to purchase more of them.
Cable-Modem Considerations
Cable-modem offers a “shared neighborhood” style of connection that potentially
can reach hundreds of people in a single neighborhood. Having cable-modem
access is like being on a network where all people share the Internet capacity of a
single cable. A digital TV cable is a “really big pipe” with an enormous transmission
capacity, but it can be seriously diluted for an individual when hundreds of your
neighbors choose to surf the Internet during the peak personal hours of 5:00 to
11:00 in the evening. Cable-modem is more people sensitive, so the more people on
the network, the slower the transmission rate. Your best source of information
regarding the level of service in your neighborhood is your neighbors. An experienced
subscriber to your cable-modem ISP can give you examples of speeds that you can
expect at various times during the day.
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Home Networking Demystifi ed
Choosing an ISP
On the scale of importance in setting up a home network, choosing the right ISP
ranks up there with choosing the right communications equipment. In terms of cost,
this decision may top that of the net gear. An ISP can be a mom-and-pop shop or a
multinational conglomerate. It can offer basic Internet access and nothing else, or it
can offer a range of Internet access services and a laundry list of additional services.
The following is a list of things you should be looking for in an ISP, with the most
important fi rst:
• Quality of the ISP Every company has a reputation. Pick a good one.
• Internet access Unlimited service is widely available and the most
desirable service. Unfortunately, high-volume users, namely those who are
continually downloading/uploading movies and music, have forced some
ISPs to limit the amount of information that can be transmitted per day for
a given account.
• Internet service speeds Broadband ISPs can limit downstream and
upstream speeds. Several web sites, such as Broadband Reports (www.
dslreports.com), routinely test the actual (versus advertised) bandwidth
speeds for major ISPs and then report their fi ndings.
• Number of e-mail accounts The ISP should provide enough e-mail
accounts (the main account plus subaccounts) for each person in your
family to have his or her own e-mail address.
• Support hardware Many ISPs will provide the hardware needed to
enable broadband Net service (modem, home gateway, Ethernet NIC, and
so on) for free or at a substantially reduced cost. If you accept their free
hardware (worth as much as $200), they probably will ask for a one- to
two-year contract.
• Storage space An ISP may provide online storage space in which you
can store fi les, photos, or whatever can be accessed from any Internet-ready
PC. This is a good way to share photos and videos with family and friends.
The amount of space offered may vary from 5MB to over 100MB.
• Personal web page Some ISPs will host your personal web page (size
may be limited to around 10MB).
• Technical support If everything goes smoothly, you can be up and
running in fi ve minutes and you may not need technical support for years.
If it doesn’t go smoothly, technical support is critical. Give a company that
offers 24/7 support a few extra points.
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CHAPTER 9 Sharing Printers, Files, and an Internet Connection
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• Additional services The additional services that can be offered by
an ISP are many and varied. For example, an ISP can offer parental
controls, fi rewall software (Internet protection), Internet radio, an online
encyclopedia, a gaming package, newsgroups, instant messaging, free
classifi ed ad listings, free Consumer Reports information, securities market
research and analysis, and many other possibilities. On my personalized
“home page,” my ISP lists news and sports of interest to me, show times
for all the local movie theaters, and the local weather.
Frequently there is a “come on” price for three months or so. Be sure to look past
that price and know exactly what you will be paying up front and each month over
the term of the contract. It pays to read the small print, as telecoms are notorious for
tacking on mysterious charges over and above the advertised rate. It’s not unusual
for these charges (not counting taxes) to be in excess of $10 a month.
Another important consideration is the number of PC users permitted on a single
account by the ISP. Some ISPs are now limiting the number of PCs, often to two or
three, that can tap into the Internet access for a single account. ISPs initiated this
restriction because families/individuals in adjoining apartments would subscribe to
broadband access and then share the line via a wireless network. Make sure that the
limit will handle your home networking needs over the next couple of years.
American Online: AOL
Another very popular approach to gaining Internet access is to subscribe to a
commercial information service, such as America Online or CompuServe.
Approximately one in four Internet-ready homes subscribes to America Online. That
percentage is lower for homes with home networks. When you log in to AOL, you are
on the AOL network, not the Internet. Once on AOL, you have a gateway to the
Internet through its software and network. CompuServe is a subsidiary of America
Online, Inc. Both offer Internet access and a variety of online services, but CompuServe
may be more oriented to adults and their information and entertainment needs.
AOL is sometimes called “the Internet with training wheels.” The “training
wheels,” however, may be AOL’s greatest asset. AOL has a user-friendly proprietary
interface with numerous easily accessible online services (see Figure 9-14). The
many services, which include personal fi nance, instant messaging, news, Internet
radio, travel, shopping, and many others, are easily customized for a personalized
online experience. AOL maintains an army of technical support people who are
used to working with people who are beginning their online experience or installing
home networks.
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Home Networking Demystifi ed
Virtually everything on AOL is available on the Internet in one form or another.
AOL is not for everyone, but it offers a nonthreatening approach to the online
experience that can be very appealing to both the novice user and the experienced
user who has become comfortable within the cocoon of AOL services.
Figure 9-14 America Online (AOL)
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PART FOUR
Protecting and
Operating a
Home Network
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