Welcome to my Wireless Networking page, this follows on from my broadband guide, and is perfect if you don't want a lot of wires trailing all over your house. On this page I will detail how my network is setup at home as an example, and what you will need to set up your own Wireless Network.

My example is shown below:

After you have created a network diagram you should then decide on what speed you want your network to run, as this will determine what type of equipment you will need to get:

1. 802.11b (10 Mbps) - This is the slowest speed type of wireless technology, but it is the cheapest, at this speed the network still runs quite fast, and I haven't noticed any drops in speed compared to the wired network.

2. 802.11g (54 Mbps) - This is five times faster than 802.11b and also has greater signal strength, but equipment using this type of wireless technology does tend to cost more money, it is also backwards compatible with 802.11b equipment.

Considering the amount of equipment I had to purchase I decided to go for the 802.11b option, then you have to create a list of equipment that you need, my list was as follows:

1 x Wireless Access Point                             

(Linksys WAP11 - www.broadbandstuff.co.uk - Around £ 40

2 x Wireless PCI Cards (for PC's)                

(Net gear MA311 - PC World - Around £ 35 each, although there are cheaper

1 x Wireless PCMCIA Card (for Laptop)    

(Line One PCMCIA Card - www.ebay.co.uk - Around £ 9.99

1 x Wireless Ethernet Bridge (for Xbox)   

(Linksys WGA11B - www.broadbandstuff.co.uk - Around £ 50

Total = £ 170

As you can see buying the equipment wasn't cheap, especially if you add the cost of the router into the equation, but shop around for the best equipment, making sure that it is all compatible with one another.

You will then need to decide on a few settings for the wireless part of the network, these are as follows:

1. Network Name / SSID

2. Broadcast Channel

3. WEP Encryption Key(s)

4. Access Point Name

I will detail each area below:

1. Network Name / SSID

This is simply the name that is used on the Network and is also used to identify it, it can be anything you like and contain any alphanumeric characters, examples include:

My Home Network

WirelessNet-01

01 Wireless Network

2. Broadcast Channel

This is just a channel number of the frequency range that the wireless transmission will be operating on, you can usually define a channel, but it is usually selected, in the UK there are 13 different channels.

3. WEP Encryption Keys

To put it simply, a WEP Key is like a PIN number used to access the network, it is written in hexadecimal code, without it no one can access your wireless network, you can have up to four WEP keys on some devices. They are written in alphanumeric characters, numbers between 0 - 9 and letters between A - F, and can vary in length depending on the amount of encryption you want, a 128 Bit WEP Encryption Key for example is 26 characters long, examples are shown below:

1. 0011AABB2233CCDD4455EEFF66

2. ABA1234ABA5678ABA9012ABA34

When you have decided on a WEP Key write it down, as you will need to keep this safe.

4. Access Point Name

This is simply the name you assign to your access point, it can be anything you wish, examples are shown below:

My Home Access Point

WirelessNet-AP-01

01 Wireless AP

1. Network Name / SSID: My Home Network

2. Broadcast Channel: 11

3. Number of WEP Encryption Key(s): 1

4. WEP Encryption Key Security: 128 Bit

5. WEP Key: 0011AABB1122336677DDEE991

6. Access Point Name: Home Network AP 1

This has been applied to my network diagram, which is shown below:

As you can see from the above diagram, the only data field that changes is the IP Address, this is because no two machines can have the same IP Address, a diagram like this helps to keep track of what numbers have already been used. I have also left out of the diagram the DNS Addresses, because these are individual to every ISP.

Once you have completed this on your network diagram, you will then need to configure the devices accordingly, this is relatively simple as you have all of the settings on your network diagram.

I would recommend that you setup the Access Point first at this will be the main communication point of your network, your access point should ideally be placed in the middle of all machines, on my diagram the machines directly above the Access Point have the strongest signal as it has less walls to travel through.

All of the the other wireless devices should have an application that is on their installation CD that allows you to view your signal quality and signal strength, if these are very low try and move the wireless antenna to another position to get a better signal, some wireless cards have detachable antenna's which useful for trying to optimise a good signal.

If the quality does not improve then you may need to think about getting another Access Point installed on the network.

Your wireless network should now be up and running, when using your network make sure that the Access Point and the Router are turned on first, and then turn machines as necessary.

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