What's an easy, and inexpensive, way to network my home?
February 13, 2002
A. The benefits of networking your home are pretty obvious, especially if you've recently purchased a new PC and want to keep the older model in service. But wiring a house with Category 5 (Cat 5) Ethernet cable canbe invasive and expensive. Instead, consider wireless networking based on the 802.11b (Wi-Fi) standard. Wireless network cards are relatively inexpensive, usually $100 or less, and you won't need an access point--the piece of hardware that connects your wireless network to a more traditional wired network--because Wi-Fi can work in ad-hoc mode (no access point). So for $200 you can wirelessly connect two PCs and move these PCs anywhere in the house without having to rewire or deal with cables. And with speeds of up to 11Mbps, you won't experience delays.
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