If you’re needing to setup a personal home network, writing out a plan can save a lot of stress especially if you ever think you’re going to expand your local area network in the distant future.

The main reason of planning is to find out what you really need to put in your home network, after all there is so much more available than only having computers connect to the internet.

This includes WiFi, cables, or even both

Even though you probably only use a wired connection, will you be able to use WiFi in the future?

Pretty much everyone will at some point, and the difference in the price between a wired router and wireless router is very small, and most if not all wireless routers still have a 5 port wired hub built into them which means you can still connect both wired and wireless into your router.

The whole point most people need to have a home network setup is to share an internet connection, in this case it’s imperative that the overall security and well being of each computer and the router is loaded with the latest firmware, this includes Wireless Security, Router Security & each computer must have a firewall, anti-spyware and a firewall.

Long gone are the days of having to share your hard drive or need a special computer, NAS systems are easy to setup and they typically have space from 500gb to 2tb. There are even some with wireless options.

The speed of a network can play a major factor if you send big files, truth be told a wired network will always be faster than wireless, as a rule of thumb use cabled where possible and wifi where you have to, i.e laptops.

One huge mistake made when many of us setup a home network is thinking about future expansions to the network, spending a little less today will only mean spending more money tomorrow, work within your budget but be realistic, setup the network that suits your needs and and budget.




By: Alex Smith