Wireless SoHo Case Study

Arvind David and Armand David, brothers living in an apartment block in West London, needed to share their Internet connection and create a network when Arvind, a freelance media consultant and film producer, decided to work from home.

Armand, his family's designated technologist, was faced with a networking conundrum when his brother, Arvind, started working from home and needed network access. The existing 4-port wired network switch was a frustrating and inadequate solution, and the cost of wiring the flat for Ethernet was prohibitively high.

'It was extremely frustrating, initially. I just needed to be online, with an ability to check email and work from my room ' which, at only 10 meters from the ADSL-enabled line, didn't seem too far away,' commented Arvind. 'When the only option was wiring the house for Ethernet, we had to accept makeshift solutions ' cables dragged across the hallway and such like. Fortunately it wasn't too long before wireless technology became broadly affordable and available.'

Once the technologies became more mainstream and available, Armand began constructing their wireless network.

'Initially, it was definitely a patchwork job ' a wireless card here, an access point there, no security anywhere at all. If one of my neighbours had been in range, nothing would have stopped them accessing shared files on my PC. Needless to say, I took fast steps to secure our data,' remarked Armand.

'It was crucial that my work remained secure. I deal with confidential information on a daily basis ' for clients, and on my own projects, and when we realised the extent of the risk we were taking it became a priority to up our network security,' added Arvind.

At the stage the Davids came to upgrade their network, the primary challenge lay in identifying a suitable wireless solution. BT Yahoo Broadband's service provided a stable, fast Internet connection with some good security features, such as email virus protection, but from a wireless security perspective it was necessary to identify the solution that brought the best balance of speed and security to meet the various demands to be placed on the network ' media streaming, secure data access and backup, quick, reliable and continuous Internet access and online gaming.

In addition to the broadband solution in place, the Davids each had had a Intel-based laptop computer, and an Xbox* they wanted online.

A new modem and wireless broadband router from Linksys got them a stateful-packet inspection firewall on their connection to the BT Yahoo Broadband service (speed recently increased to up to 2MB), and put the laptops on a WPA encrypted wireless network ' a big step up from the WEP encryption their old network was capable of. The router brought denial-of-service protection as well. The addition of a wireless gaming adaptor also enabled online gaming via Xbox live.

Armand's desktop, wired into the Router, acts as fileserver. A spare PCMCIA card meant that others, including their sister Sheila, who occasionally visited the flat on breaks from Edinburgh, could log in.

Armand described the migration process: 'Substantial research on the web led us to choose a Linksys solution, and rightly so; the security features are robust and the configuration was straightforward. The fact that the router is Intel Centrino certified was a good sign for us; we needed our laptops to connect without complications.'

'The network took literally 30 minutes to set up and get running ' a huge relief, as we were both too busy to spend time fiddling about. It was simply a matter of plugging and playing, alongside entering a security key.'

The Davids make good use of their wireless network: in addition to wireless gaming via the PCs and Xbox Live, Armand's PC, wired into the router's switch, acts as a media and data file store ' they regularly stream music videos through the TV and home entertainment setup over the WLAN.

The laptops are backed up onto the fileserver over the WLAN at regular intervals, Armand and Arvind both use IP telephony from their laptops, and via a Bluetooth headset from their desktop over the BT Yahoo Communicator service (which offers the ability to make calls via PC to PC), and their network encryption is more than sturdy enough to dissuade neighbours from low-jacking their network.

As security measures increase, the Davids may well look to upgrade their network again, although it may not happen too soon: 'I had two concerns setting up this network; the first was security, the second speed. With WPA encryption, a hardware firewall, and denial of service protection, I suspect I'm as secure as I need to be for the time being, and with up to 54MBps wireless access, I have all the speed I can eat. My next challenge is to configure and make use of the secure VPN access the router is capable of so that we can log into our network remotely, for backup, fileserver access and the like,' concluded Armand.