How to use a Router to Give All Your PCs Broadband Access

If you're a small business or remote/home office worker, you may suffer from a common dilemma: You have a broadband connection, you have multiple computers, and you have absolutely no idea how to share that connection with all the computers. The solution? A router.

The word router instantly evokes images of file-cabinet sized equipment with lots of flashing LED lights humming away in a closet. The reality is that finding and installing a small office/home office router is about as simple as setting up a printer.

Moreover, routers bring other benefits to the table. Besides sharing Internet connections, routers also typically provide internal firewalls to protect computers. Also, routers can be configured to direct certain types of Internet traffic to specified computers on the network, or to block certain types of traffic from reaching specified computers.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

Small business users are beset with an Internet access dilemma they never had before: How to share broadband Internet access between computers. While before they may have relied on dial-up modems, these days they need a router. But what is a router? What types are on the market? How much does one cost? And how do you install it?

WIRELINE OR WIRELESS?

First off, you need a broadband connection.Then you need to think about how you want to use your various connections. Will they all be located near one another? Are they dispersed throughout an office or household? If the former is true, you will probably opt for a wireline router, but if the latter describes your scenario, then you may very well want a wireless router.

The difference between the two devices is simple: One router connects to your broadband access device, and then shares it with multiple computers via Ethernet cables (otherwise known as RJ-45 and available at any computer store) that are plugged into the back of your small/home office's PCs.

Wired routers are a simple, cheap (starting at less than $100; see "Wireline Routers"), straightforward solution. In most cases, users plug in the router, connect the computers, configure the computers' network settings and that's it (see Fig. 1). Moreover, most wired routers support Fast Ethernet, which transmits at 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) as opposed to plain old Ethernet's 10 Mbps. This speeds up other networking activity, such as printing or file-sharing between computers. "My primary machine has a built-in 10/100/1,000 Mbps [network card], but most of my other systems, and my router, are limited to 100 Mbps," he says. "They're networked via Ethernet through a five-port SMC Barricade, which is a combination Ethernet switch, router and firewall."

The other option, wireless, is a little more complex, and a little costlier (usually more than $200), and may not reach Fast Ethernet speeds, but it offers more flexible, "anywhere" networking. Rather than connecting to your computers via Ethernet cables, a wireless router sends and receives information typically using a wireless technology called 802.11b (also known as Wi-Fi; visit www.wi-fi.org for more information). To exchange signals with the routers, your computers will need wireless network cards or adapters (see "Wireless Routers & Cards" for a list of some of the products and manufacturers on the market). These may be an entire network card, or perhaps a PCMCIA card (the credit card-sized cards you plug into a laptop). The cards/adaptors contain 802.11b technology and antennas that let them communicate with the router (see Fig. 2).

The cost of the cards (starting at approximately $50) - plus the fact that Wi-Fi routers are costlier - means wireless is definitely a more expensive option.

WIRELESS PRECAUTIONS

Wi-Fi is a relatively new technology that operates in what is called public spectrum. Unlike the signals that radio stations or mobile phone companies use, signals in the public spectrum are not regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC; www.fcc.gov). Instead, they are open to the public for use.

Of course, the public airwaves are just that - public. This is a double-edged sword. On the positive side, this has opened up a range of wireless data services for mobile professionals that lets them go to a cafe or hotel lobby, access a public Wi-Fi Internet access service, pay a fee via credit card, and get on the 'Net. On the negative side, it means that home and small office users have to secure their private Wi-Fi networks. Unless the right precautions to secure a Wi-Fi network are taken, uninvited "guests" with Wi-Fi cards can piggyback on to private wireless networks and use their broadband access for free. In fact, there are PC enthusiasts who make a hobby of cruising neighborhoods and business parks looking for access. Some of them somewhat innocently do it just to see what they can find, and others do it to actually pirate access.

Fortunately, wireless router manufacturers incorporate encryption technology into their routers to encode its signals so that only the computers on your network can send and receive them. Also, it's important to change the passwords you use to access and adminis- trate the router, since it is on the open airwaves. Whether or not these capabilities are used is up to whomever sets up the network; typically factory settings have the encryption turned off, and the passwords are obviously default passwords. "We use a Linksys [www.linksys.com] wireless router with our cable connection," says Matt Higbee, who runs Starboard Response, a company that serves political lobbyists over the Internet." A wireless router made sense for us because we use laptops and are always working in different parts of the office. We have never had any problems with our neighbors usurping our bandwidth. The only security measure we took was to set our router to a channel other than the default one."

INSTALLING A ROUTER

While hearing acronyms such as TCP/IP and DHCP might immediately cause the technically impaired to head for the hills, installing a router actually is an easy process - even for wireless routers. To start, connect the Ethernet cable coming out of your cable-modem or DSL access device to the port on your router usually marked "WAN" (wide area network) or sometimes marked "Internet." Next, connect each of the computers on your network to the router using an Ethernet cable. Or, if the router only has one port, it could be connected to the "Uplink" port on an Ethernet hub that connects the computers in an office. Likewise, a multi-port router could also be connected to multiple hubs to network even more computers. Next, you must configure the addressing. On transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP /IP) networks, each computer has an IP address given to it by the router. Typically, this is done by a technology called dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP), which lets the routers share a pool of IP addresses among multiple computers. The advantage here is that you can simply attach new computers to the network and have them up and running as long as they are set up to receive their IP addresses via FTP (file transmission protocol), as well. To set up each of the computers on the network to receive their IP address via FTP, all that is required is to open up the computer's TCP/IP settings and configure it so the computer gets it's address via DHCP.

On Macs using OSX, users do this by opening the system preferences, choosing network, showing "Built-in Ethernet," clicking the TCP/lP tab and selecting the "Using DHCP" option on the "Configure" drop-down menu. On Windows' machines running 98/2000, users must first have TCP/IP installed (chances are they do). If they don't, they must open up their control panels, open up the "Network" control panel, select the "configuration" tab, click the "add" button, and double-click "protocol." In the next window they must double-click "TCP/IP" on the right-hand list. The "Network Window" should appear again and TCP/lP should be listed. With TCP/IP installed, PC users can typically set up each computer using an installer CD that comes with the router, and can then restart. If they have to do it manually, they can set up their TCP/IP settings for DHCP by opening the "Network" control panel, opening their TCP/IP properties, selecting the "IP Address" tab, and select the "Obtain IP Address Automatically" button. Mac or Windows, the computers should all be restarted.

Once the computers are restarted, the router needs to be configured so that it is connected to the Internet. Most routers are configured via an interface accessible through a Web browser. Typically, users enter the IP address of the router (this is provided in the router's instruction manual), and are asked to enter a user name and password (also provided in the manual) . This will let users enter Web pages that actually change the settings on the router.  On the settings page, users must enter in the IP address given to them by their broadband service provider, or if the provider uses DHCP, they must select that option. Now that the router is connected to the broadband connection, it needs to route the traffic to the computers connected to it. Since the computers have been configured to receive their addresses via DHCP, the router must be configured to provide addresses via DHCP. (The interfaces for this obviously will vary between routers, but the users manuals should make it easy).

For wireless routers, the process is somewhat the same, except that each computer gets a wireless card, and the software and TCP/IP must be set up for those cards. Again, the wireless router and cards typically come with software installers that eliminate manually setting up the network. However, encryption settings should be changed from the default, and the administration user name and password should be changed from the default, as well. Routers and PCs also can be configured so that each PC has a specific IP addresses. Doing so makes it possible to further configure the router to direct different types of traffic to different devices, or blocking specific traffic from reaching separate devices. Traffic is defined as application ports, and each one has a code number. The router's Web interface will provide an administration page that makes it possible to direct specific applications ports to specific IP addresses (or a range of ports to a range of addresses). Once set up with a router, the small office, home business, residence and remote workers are off and running, making the most of their broadband connections.

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