article about home routers.
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CONTINUING ED-Sept 6
Routers Find the Path to Affordability
Lou Dolinar. Dolinar can be reached by e-mail at dolinar@newsday.com.
ONCE YOU HAVE your broadband connection up and running, you'll want to share it with other computers in your household.
Last week we showed you how to accomplish sharing in software by using special features that come with Windows 98 SE. This week we'll look at a totally different approach, using a hardware device called a router.
What's a router? It is a sorting gizmo that parcels out Internet packets to the correct computer. In effect it takes the connection-sharing feature of Windows 98 out of the computer, and puts it in its own little box, which you program with your password and account name to log onto your broadband network.
The box, not your computer, is plugged into the cable/DSL modem. All your local computers get plugged into the box.
Time was, routers were for the big dogs-businesses, ISPs, Internet backbone providers. The jumbo versions process billions of bits per second and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Until quite recently, few cost less than a grand, and none were suitable for home computing networks.
That started to change about a year ago, as broadband use in the home began to catch on. Since then, more than a dozen of these devices have come on the market for less that $300; I've even seen one for $99. By and large, they're far easier to use and set up than their industrial-strength brethren, which I expect will improve rapidly in the next few years.
Why would you want to use a router, rather than connection-sharing software on your PC? Software that runs in the background on a computer tends to make it slower and less stable. This is less of an issue with Windows 2000, but Windows 98 isn't as robust. By moving the sharing function and other networking functions to a router, you can run a cleaner, simpler system on your PC.
The router solves another common home-network problem: Before I got a route, my daughter, Ann, connected to the Internet through a proxy server on my computer. When I turned my computer off, or I had it torn up for one of my many upgrades, Annie was out of luck.
Since the router has no moving parts and draws a minimum amount of power, you can leave it on all the time. Any computer that's powered on can use it, even if all the others on the network are powered off.
A router also provides a basic level of security that would require additional software on a PC. You can usually configure a router to "hide" the computers on the network behind it. Nothing to see, nothing to hack.
Beyond the basic function of creating a sharable connection to the Internet, features can vary tremendously among home routers. I'll start here with the one I'm using, and which has largely defined the market, the Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL Router, available, last I checked, at $159. It is a genuine underground hit on the Net, with Linksys selling something like 5,000 units per week.
The Linky, as it's known, gives you everything you need to connect four computers to a cable or DSL modem, since it incorporates a 4-port network switch for 10/100 Base-T cables. A network switch is the deluxe version of a hub, and means your computers communicate with each other at the highest possible speed. Just add connecting cables and a network interface card in each computer, and you're ready to go.
It also functions as a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server.
Instead of using Windows' connection sharing to hand out IP addresses, the router does it for you, and maintains a list internally of the addresses it has successfully set up. The Linky allows you to manually configure your computers if you wish, as per the directions I gave last year in this space. Check my archives at www.dolinar.com.
Note that when you run a router-or, for that matter, Internet connection sharing software - you do trade off convenience for security. By blocking unwanted access from the Internet, routers also may block access that you want-for example, letting people share your Napster files. This is an issue we'll get into in more detail in coming weeks, but for now we'll note that the Linky lets you put one computer "unguarded" on the Net. You can also enable specific services like FTP on specific computers.
You'll find cheaper routers with fewer features and more lavishly appointed ones as well. The bare-bones $99 models don't incorporate a switch or a hub, and are designed to be plugged into the hub or switch you may already have.
Some have more ports for more computers. Some give you a better ability to tweak security settings. I've seen a couple that let you plug in a regular modem as backup to your DSL/cable connection. Another neat feature uses some complex network voodoo to let you host a permanent domain name on a floating IP address. If you need to have me explain that to you, you don't need the feature.
You can get a good feel for the different types of home routers by reading user comments and reviews on www.speedguide.net. There's also a ton of how-to material for setting up and troubleshooting routers and networks.
Users report that the Linky seems to be totally stable on Cablevision's system, but I've experienced occasional lockups-and reports of similar problems-on Bell Atlantic DSL. The speed tweaks I described two weeks ago largely cleared up my problems, though I occasionally have to reboot the router-a 10-second process-to clear the jam. I'm not sure whether to blame this on Linksys or the phone company, since I had occasional hangups before I was using the Linksys.
Setup is straightforward-more so than installing a Bell Atlantic DSL modem that attaches directly to the PC. In the latter case, you need to enable Window's Virtual Private Networking, then install proprietary connection software called WinPoet on your PC. You end up with a vast and confusing pile of entries in the Network Control Panel item.
With the Linky, you set up a nice bare-bones network connection on your PCs. After all the wiring is connected, you log into the Linky with your Web browser, embed your account name and password, and a few other items. If you do it right, you get an acknowledgment that you're connected in the status window that the browser displays.
Where I found the Linky particularly useful was in troubleshooting network connections. A chronic issue with broadband is figuring out whether a problem lies with the provider's network, or with your internal configurations. At the point that you've got your router installed, and it verifies a connection's in place, you know that any further difficulty lies on your side of the connection. Conversely, if it isn't connecting, you know the provider has a problem.
Overall, the Linky probably is the best bargain out there for connecting broadband. However, if you are interested in network games, you may want to stay tuned till next week, when we'll discuss the potential problems with connection sharing.
Dolinar can be reached by e-mail at dolinar@newsday.com. To buy printed copies of his earlier columns, call 800-2FINDOUT. |
