Information gateway

A ‘route map’ to the internet and the gear it takes to get there

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Information gateway Illustration
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Information gateway Illustration

In the middle of the 20th century, "hi-fi" was an abbreviation for "high fidelity," reflecting high-quality sound reproduction from record players and similar equipment.

In the current century, there's "Wi-Fi," which is not an abbreviation for "wireless fidelity." It's an industry trade term for a networking technology that lets computers and other electronic devices communicate with one another via a wireless signal.

Wi-Fi is what makes it possible for practically any device in your house -- desktops, laptops, TVs, phones, game boxes, printers and even kitchen appliances -- to connect wirelessly to the internet.

In many cases it's wisest to have a professional put everything together, but even if the last such installation you made was a hi-fi stereo system in your college dorm room, it's possible, and not that hard, with just a little bit of technical proclivity, to install and program most of the equipment yourself.

"Essentially, anybody can set up their own home Wi-Fi system with relative ease," says Elizabeth Bowles, president and chairman of the board of Little Rock-based internet service provider Aristotle Inc.

First things first

The first step to in-home internet is to contact an internet service provider (abbreviated "ISP").

In this area, if you're looking for high-speed broadband service, you're going to be looking primarily at a company that started out providing either telephone service or cable television. Most of those are now big corporations bundling television, phone, internet and other forms of home entertainment into a variety of combination packages.

Depending on the ISP and the plan you work out,

you supply the computer and the other end-use devices. The provider usually supplies the equipment you'll need to connect to the internet -- usually, though not always, for a monthly rental fee (somewhere around $8-$15 a month, according to most sources) above what you pay for internet service. Or you can save those rental fees by buying your own at just about any electronics store.

In either case you'll need a gateway device to the internet, called a "modem," which brings the signal into your home, and a device that routes the signal from the modem to the various internet-using devices, known, appropriately, as the "router." Most ISPs these days combine them into a single box, for which they use the term "gateway." But they are two distinct devices.

The modem communicates with an ISP's network, modulating and demodulating (thus, "mo-dem") the signal between an analog signal -- as through a telephone line, for example -- and a digital end user, such as a computer. (That combination roaring/screeching sound you used to hear when dial-up-connecting to the internet through your telephone was the modem connecting and translating one type of signal to another.)

"The router is what it sounds like -- it routes traffic," Bowles explains. It connects to the internet through the modem, and "it's what distributes the Wi-Fi signal."

She says it's vital, whether you're starting from scratch or replacing existing equipment, to contact the ISP to make sure the equipment you've chosen is compatible with theirs. And, "If you plan to replace your ISP's router, you will have to do some programming work [on the router] to make sure that it's going to play nicely with your provider's system."

Assessing needs

What electronic equipment you'll need depends on your home's size and the time and type of construction, Bowles says. One router, for example, may not be enough.

"You want to identify a central location that will allow you to get the most coverage," she adds. "Some homes, particularly older homes, may need more than one router to get coverage throughout the entire house. The Wi-Fi signal will go through the floor, but not necessarily go through a wall that's concrete, or a plaster-and-lath-board wall that has metal in it."

And, "Do you also want to cover your backyard? If so, you'll have to make sure you have a router that reaches outside your house."

For example, because of the composition of the walls, and also so she can access the internet in her backyard, Bowles has four routers to cover her three-story 5,200-square-foot, 1910 Quapaw Quarter domicile. But, she says, even a tiny house with plaster-and-lath walls may have the same conditions.

Adding routers also offers additional advantages:

• It may give you access to the latest Wi-Fi technologies that enhance speed or area of coverage or both. (See related story.)

• It could help you keep from overloading your internet access as too many users try to get through to the internet at the same time.

• And it may help you increase the security of your Wi-Fi connection by giving, say, weekend guests a different password-protected way of accessing the internet from you and your family.

If you are buying a router, Bowles stresses the importance of looking primarily for quality in Wi-Fi equipment, and also of finding the right balance between quality and economy.

"You can buy routers at Best Buy, you can buy routers online anywhere, but not all routers are created equal," she says. "Some are better than others, because of the internal components.

"You get what you pay for, particularly in routers. Cheaper routers fail more often. Not by a huge amount, and you don't have to necessarily buy a $120 router, but the ones at the low end, around, say, $25, will fail more often because the internal components are not as good."

Whether you're renting equipment from your ISP or buying your own, many internet service providers provide do-it-yourself internet installation kits that can be put together with varying degrees of ease. Comcast, for example, will send do-it-yourself customers a kit with a "gateway" device, coaxial and Ethernet connecting cables and some small bits of hardware; a 2-minute, 33-second YouTube video provides easy connection instructions.

Makers of routers and modems also provide installation and programming information through online interfaces, accessible through standard browsers.

Speed, power and coverage

The construction and square footage of your house will also help you decide what you need in terms of power (measured in megaherz and gigaherz frequencies) and distance in a router. Most routers operate at 2.4 GHz, but some go up to 5 GHz. The higher number will get you a faster connection to the internet, Bowles explains, but will cover less ground: "The higher the number in the gigaherz, the more 'throughput' you get, but the shorter distance it goes," meaning a bigger house might require one or more routers because each one covers a smaller area.

The speed of internet access, the capacity of your equipment and the amount of data you can download and upload are factors of bandwidth, Bowles says.

"Capacity is the modem's job and the job of whatever connection you have to the internet," she adds. "Bandwidth is going to determine your capacity" -- and the cost of your monthly data plan. More data and faster speeds, the more bandwidth you need and the more your bill will increase.

"You want to have enough bandwidth to be able to stream everything you want to stream. There is going to be an absolute limit, however, based on how much you've purchased from your provider, or how much is available to you."

Bandwidth also determines the speeds at which you can download and upload data from and to the internet. Most consumers are more interested in the download speed, because it determines how much and how smoothly they can conveniently stream music, movies, cute cat videos, etc.

But as far as the router is concerned, there's no "legal" limit on the number of devices it can accommodate, Bowles says. There is, however, a practical limit: Every device that accesses a router is sharing that router's signal, and you can only divide that signal so many times.

People think it's their connection that is slow, she says, but it's more likely splitting the signal until it begins to balk and slow things to a crawl.

"You've got one kid gaming, your wife is streaming Netflix, you're streaming Hulu, the other kids are studying on the internet, all sharing that same signal," she says.

"A lot of times, the choke point is that router. You certainly can overload [it] -- it's not all that hard to do. A couple of people streaming Netflix in HD can do that in short order." Adding a router or routers that connect to different devices can help clear that choke point.

"You may also get slower wireless performance from a router if you have dozens of wireless devices connected to the same access point," explains Synonym.com's online classroom (tinyurl.com/ze4gcwj).

"Wi-Fi is a radio technology, and the devices have to share the same broadcast frequency. The more devices connected to the router, the greater the chance of connection interference." The interference is not associated with the router itself, the site continues, "but is rather due to all the devices trying to communicate on the same frequencies."

Having more than one router also can help ensure your data is secure.

"If you're extremely security conscious, you can have two routers, a 'public' one and a private one," Bowles says. "Keep all of your internet stuff on your password-protected private network; the public network and password you can [provide] to weekend guests."

Bowles recommends you always change the password on your Wi-Fi network from the factory setting to something that you remember but others won't. Don't rely on the default security.

She also says it's critical to plug all your electronic equipment into a surge-protected outlet.

"Notwithstanding a lightning strike," she says, your devices must also be able to withstand the power surge that occurs when power comes back on after a blackout. "That certainly can potentially fry a modem."

Not all power strips that claim to be surge-protected necessarily are, so consumers must be careful to buy the right ones. Emerson Technologies (tinyurl.com/j6t6kcn) recommends that to be sure it's a surge protector, look for an electric rating (in Joules), as well as the maximum voltage the power strip can take from a power spike, on either the box it comes in or on the strip itself. A regular power strip will not have this information.

Trouble-shooting

A home Wi-Fi system consists primarily of four parts: the connection to the internet, usually through a modem; the connection between the modem and the router, which is usually a cable of some kind, unless the devices are contained in the same box; the wireless connection from the router to the computer; and the computer.

Bowles says if you're having Wi-Fi connectivity issues, "it's far more likely to be the router, the cable or the computer" than the internet connection.

"Start with the easiest thing first" -- rebooting your computer -- "because [that] resets your wireless card, and sometimes that'll solve the issue.

"If that doesn't solve the problem, reboot the router by unplugging it for 30 seconds, and then plugging it back in; wait a minute and it should start transmitting again."

Also check to make sure the cable ends, which are fragile and can be easily broken through manhandling, are connecting properly.

"Then, if all else fails, call your ISP."

However, stay away from the reset button on the router unless you have absolutely no other option. It resets the router to factory defaults and will likely mean you'll have to reconfigure the router to regain your internet connection the way it was.

"Don't push the reset button on the router," she says, emphatically. "That router has been configured to your internet service provider. If you hit that button, the router may come back online, but your connection to the internet won't."

HomeStyle on 07/30/2016

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