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DECEMBER 30, 2002

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
By Steve Rosenbush

Some Home Truths about Wi-Fi
To get the network in my house up to speed, I'll have to use a combination of wired and wireless. Until then, no surfing on the deck


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I had been writing about wireless home networks for months, but writing about technology and using it are two different things. I found out the hard way after deciding that I needed a wireless network at home. You don't need any particular technical expertise. I certainly don't have any. But if your experience is anything like mine, you should brace yourself for a few long telephone calls with the support staff at your Internet service provider (ISP), your wireless router manufacturer, and, possibly, your employer's information-technology department.


I still don't have exactly what I want. But after a day and a half of frustration, I have a working wireless system. It allows me to write and edit at home more easily and efficiently than before, which is extremely valuable for someone with two small kids and a need for flexible work arrangements.

BETTER WAY.  Our household has two computers: a family desktop and a laptop that I regularly bring home from work. A few months ago, we subscribed to digital subscriber line (DSL) service from Verizon, which connects the desktop to the Internet at a relatively fast speed. The DSL modem that came with our subscription has a connection for just one computer, so I was stuck with a dial-up 56K connection for the laptop. That was cumbersome, slow, and tied up our home phone line for hours on end. There had to be a better way.

We had to have a wireless local area network at home, which would theoretically allow us to distribute the high-speed Internet access throughout the house -- and backyard, for that matter -- without running any new wires. The technology is known as Wi-Fi, for wireless fidelity. Getting the system to function properly wasn't so easy, though. And I'm still experimenting because I only have decent reception in the front part of the house, an old building in Brooklyn with thick walls that impede the radio signals used to make the technology work.

That's annoying because I prefer to work in the back of the house or outside. I won't consider the installation a total success until I can wake up early in the morning, take my laptop to the deck, sit down with a cup of coffee, and scan the headlines and read my e-mail. That could be a while, and I may end up having to move the router and run some wires -- on what's supposed to be a wireless setup -- from the back of the house to the front in order to have the system the way I want.

 
An unlimited number of devices could share the high-speed connection
 
The setup was pretty simple, really. I plugged the DSL modem into an Internet router about the size of a small clock radio. The $110 blue-and-black device from LinkSys has four high-speed Ethernet connections in the back, which allow us to plug as many as four computers directly into the unit.

CHANGE OF COMMANDS.  Two small black antennas protrude from the top of the device. These allow an unlimited number of PCs, laptops, handhelds, or other devices in the vicinity of the base station to share the high-speed connection. I use the wireless feature for the laptop, which I equipped with a $70 radio modem about the size of a credit card. It plugs into the PC slot on the side of the laptop and allows me to work wirelessly at home, or at thousands of other Wi-Fi "hotspots" in parks, cafes, airports, and hotels around the world.

The biggest challenge was getting my laptop, which had been trained to follow one set of commands at work, to follow another set at home. At the office, the laptop is connected to the corporate network and the Internet by means of an Ethernet cable. The cable plugs into an oversize telephone jack on the side of the computer, and that jack has several codes assigned to it.

The laptop automatically transferred those codes to my wireless modem as I plugged it in for the first time. I didn't realize what had gone wrong. After several lengthy conversations with the support staff at LinkSys, I turned to the networking department at BusinessWeek. Someone finally figured out what had happened, and helped me reset the modem with the proper codes. Those codes need to be reset whenever I bring my laptop home from the office, but it's not difficult.

SIGNAL ACHIEVEMENT.  My next problem was of my own making. I made a mistake when I tried to enter the password from our Verizon Online account into the LinkSys router. I spent several hours working with the support staff at LinkSys and BusinessWeek, and finally figured out the precise drill for using the reset button on the router -- remove all the cables, hold the button down for 30 seconds, and plug the cords back in starting with the power cord, then release the reset button.

I also learned how to use DOS commands to "ping" my router, a test that determines if it's receiving signals. This was all very exciting, but it didn't get the router working. I ran the problem past my wife, who's much better at managing computers than I am. She suspected the problem might be the password. I reinstalled the router software using the correct password, and now the system works.

Once the modem and the router were configured properly, the fun began. The little red LinkSys icon at the bottom of the screen turned from red to green, and the meter registered a good strong signal. I unplugged the laptop's power cord and started wandering around the house, testing the signal strength in all the bedrooms, the hallways, the kitchen, the dining room, the bathrooms, the closets, the staircase, and the backyard.

UP, DOWN, ALL AROUND?  I quickly realized that the signal traveled better vertically than horizontally. The router is located at the front of the house on the third floor. I get a nice strong signal all the way downstairs in the basement, as long as I am directly below the router. But the signal fades if I step more than 20 or 25 feet behind the router, and I lose it completely at the back of the house. I get no signal whatsoever on the deck. Grrr.

I'll have to fix that problem. The easiest and cheapest solution is to move the router to the back of the house on the third floor and connect it to the PC at the front of the house by running an Ethernet cable through the walls and under the crevice of an old molding. Using that arrangement, I should have decent wireless Internet access in the spare bedroom downstairs and, most important, on the deck.

The lesson here is that wireless isn't an easy answer to every problem. As is the case with many networks, my home network will ultimately be a mesh of wired and wireless. The system is still far from perfect. I left the network running all day last Sunday, just to see what would happen. When I came home, the desktop connection was fine, but the laptop lost reception. I had to hit the reset button on the router and reboot the entire network.

EAT TO THE BEAT.  The other big issue is security. My network is protected by the firewalls on my laptop, my desktop, and my router, but my colleagues tell me Wi-Fi security is hardly perfect. I'm not too worried about security now, given the limited reception, but I am exploring better security options.

Before too long, we'll need at least one more computer for our kids. Meanwhile, we have a six-year-old laptop that barely runs. If it can be repaired for a reasonable price, I'll plug it into the network, put it in the kitchen with a pair of cheap computer speakers, and use it to play music stored on the desktop.

Ultimately, I suppose it could be connected to a full-blown stereo or TV. This technology's potential is every bit is grand as people say. But if my experience is any indication, fulfilling that potential is going to be slower and more difficult than we realize. Thank goodness, it's only December, and it won't be warm enough to work outside until late April anyway.


Rosenbush is an editor for BusinessWeek in New York
 Edited by Beth Belton
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