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December 30, 1999
Almost two years ago one of the first guides for setting up a local area network was posted on the internet, addressing on the go all the possible pitfalls and problems one could run into trying to network home PCs. This, sort of humorous, approach to LAN called a "Network Odyssey" also marked the birthday of LostCircuits. Since then, we have come a long way. Unfortunately, there is only limited time available and even more unfortunately, home networks have been the main victim of this shortfall.
Networks, on the other hand, have also come a long way. With the introduction of Windows98, the setup has been much simplified and with the Second Edition, even Internet Access Sharing through a single outside connection has been added. The last feature used to be limited to the users of 3rd party suppliers such as Wingate and Sygate, just to mention a few.
The main problem with home networking, however, still remains. In an office environment there is usually no big problem running the CAT5 cables through the ceiling (as unprofessionally as it is often done) and thus, the physical connection of one PC with the other is relatively easy to set up. At home, the situation is slightly different since, who wants the bulky cables? Several workarounds have been released within the past 18 months, including wireless network kits. Alas, the rather limited bandwidth and associated slow transfer rates combined with frequently occurring checksum errors caused by electromagnetic interference (EMI) turned out to be a severe obstacle in the path of wireless networks to success.
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Wires and wires
For true network professionals, the quality of wiring and installation is the guarantee for success. However, as silly as it may sound, there are other wires that are available in each household. For one, the electrical system that has been used for baby-phones for over a decade. Second, most residences have multiple phone outlets. The latter has become the preferred playground for home networks. The main problem inherent to these phone networks is, once again, the limited bandwidth and, therefore, limited transfer rates. Thus, the typical off-the-shelf home phone network kit conforming to the HomePNA 1.0 standard is blessed with 1 or 3 MB/sec transfer capacity. Sufficient for most but a far cry from fast ethernet running at 100 MBs in full duplex mode or the latest GigaNet setups.
If that were all, there would be no need for this review, however, D-Link, a major player in the network scenario has just released a fast phone network-in-a-box kit based on the new HomePNA 2.0 standards and with 10MBs transfer rates, "Boy, this thing really is the balls".
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