Need For Speed

Entrepreneur, Sept, 1999 by Heather Page

When it's time to put your home office on the fast track

If you're reaping the rewards of running a local area network (LAN) at the office, perhaps it's time to bring those benefits home. Home LANs offer the same advantages - easy file and printer sharing, and affordable, multiuser Internet access - but on a smaller scale. Whether you use them for your home office or for telecommuting employees, home networking solutions eliminate the burdensome costs involved in purchasing additional phone lines, modems and Internet accounts for both home and business locations.

A variety of new home LAN technologies have hit the market recently, making product options more plentiful than ever. Choosing the right solution depends on the tasks most frequently performed, your speed and flexibility requirements, and, of course, your budget.

LAN HO!

Available for several years now, traditional "wired" home networking products, based on the same technology as larger office LANs, are the fastest solutions around. Transferring data at rates up to 100 Mbps, these LANs are ideal for users who need to transfer very large graphics, audio or video files between two or more home computers.

How do they work? Just like a traditional office network, all computers on your home LAN must have network interface cards (NICs) installed that allow them to communicate with other PCs. The communication is done with a special set of protocols called Ethernet, which carry data at speeds of 10 Mbps across your home network. Faster NICs, which use protocols called Fast Ethernet, carry data at rates up to 100 Mbps. These solutions include a hub for routing data among several computers. Cabling is also required to connect all the networked devices.

To simplify the process, a number of vendors have released all-inclusive home networking kits with everything necessary to hook up two PCs and a printer. In March, Netgear (www. netgearinc.com), a SOHO networking company, introduced the Netgear DB104 Network Starter Kit for connecting up to four PCs. This kit includes a dual-speed (10/100 Mbps) four-port hub, two dual-speed PCI NICs, network cables and a user-friendly installation guide. At $179, it comes with everything necessary to connect two PCs and a printer; additional NICs and cables are available for hooking up more.

A powerful home networking solution, the DB104 Network Starter Kit enables two PCs to share a single ISP account with one phone line. It lets users share files and printers, as well as other units, such as CD-ROM players and storage devices like Iomega's Zip drive. The DB104 also comes with a five-year warranty and free 24/7 customer support.

One downside: Unlike newer home LAN products that take advantage of a home's existing infrastructure, the DB 104 involves routing unsightly cables around the home and possibly drilling holes in the walls. If this doesn't sound attractive, and you don't need the fastest data speeds around, consider some of the newer home networking products, discussed below.

UP & COMING

An alternative to routing cables around the house involves using the existing wires to establish a network. Two new options making this a real possibility are power-line networks and phone-line networks.

Power-line networks take advantage of power lines, or AC wiring, that already reside in your home. What's more, because each PC must be connected to a special AC adaptor in the electrical outlet, the widespread availability of AC jacks around the house is a real plus.

Unfortunately, with existing powerline networking technology, there is a rather significant compromise on speed. The latest technology transfers data at a sluggish pace, less than 1 Mbps. Industry players are currently working out technical standards and looking at strategies for overcoming the existing barriers.

A front-runner in the power-line networking industry, Intelogis (www. intelogis.com) makes the PassPort Plug-In Network that works by sending data via a lower-power radio signal over AC power wires. Getting it up and running is as easy as connecting the parallel cables from your PC to the PassPort Plug-In adaptor, plugging it into any electrical outlet in your home, and loading some software. To share a printer, connect the printer's parallel cable into the PassPort Printer Plug-In adaptor residing in your home's electrical outlet, and you're done. There's no additional wiring, no hub and no need to open up your PC to install NICs like Ethernet networks require.

Priced at $150, the PassPort Plug-In Network is designed to work with Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT PCs. It includes two PassPort PC Plug-In adaptors, one PassPort Printer Plug-In adaptor and Internet-sharing software.

Enikia (www.enikia.com) recently demonstrated its latest power-line networking technology that offers Ethernet speeds. Dubbed the Information Appliance Network, Enikia has created a 10 Mbps power-line network technology allowing users to share Internet connections and printers and transfer large files between two PCs. (At press time, product information was unavailable.) In the future, Enikia expects its home LAN technology to be instrumental not only in home office environments but also in delivering complete home automation solutions for wiring all "smart" information appliances.